#outside the really contrasting illustrations

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Later, Bruce finds him climbing the cave to join the bats.

[venomnyx]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LOGAN X PASTRY CHEF READER HEADCANON😭😭

oh this is cute! kinda ran with this idea! also how perfect was this divider skdufhlskdfh

Logan Howlett x Pastry Chef!Reader HC's wc: 550

divider credit: @saradika-graphics / here -> Logan doesn't have a sweet tooth, and You Are Sweet. Almost... too sweet for Logan. He just wanted to stop for a coffee and a bite to eat— a simple transaction. He ordered an Americano, got stumped on what pastry to try, and took your recommendation of a pain au chocolate. Classic, buttery. He eats in, crowded off by the window, a sad look on his face. You try and figure him out from the counter, as you often do with customers, but he grabs your intrigue a little stronger. -> He pops by semi-frequently as you're a local shop. Doesn't trust the coffee pot back at Wade and Al's and wants something quick and easy. You recognise him quickly, learn his order off by heart, and even get his coffee started as soon as he joins the queue. -> You always invite him to try your latest pastries. He declines at first as he prefers to stick with what he's used to, but you let him try free of charge! Besides, how can he deny those eyes, softened with plea? With how you offer so sweetly?

-> Not really a sugar kind of guy, but he starts to develop a taste for it just to see you smile. Just to see you blush when he says he likes it. It makes his insides feel buttery in a way he hasn't let himself indulge in feeling for years. It very quickly stops being a "quick and easy" visit, now rather "long and difficult" for a man who hasn't addressed his feelings in years.

-> Leaves bigger tips than he can afford. Doesn't tell Wade about your shop, wants to keep this small space to himself. He feels like it's the only place he can hide away and breathe. -> Kinda knows he's in deep shit when you start to draw smiley faces, hearts and other illustrations on his coffee cup, and he likes it. Gives him that honey-syrup drop of dopamine. He loves that cute yellow apron on you. He's more disheartened than he expected himself to be when your shop is closed for maintenance/you're away for any reason.

-> He starts to hang around for when you close, especially when it starts to get darker earlier in the winter months. Chats to you when you clean the tables, and keeps his eye on the fishier-looking guys outside. It's a rougher part of the city, after all, and he wants to make sure you're safe. Offers to walk you home, and starts to make a routine out of it. He just about dies when you kiss his cheek goodbye.

-> You leave your number on his coffee cup one day, refusing to meet his eye. He goes out of his way to buy a phone just so he can contact you, and you stay up all night texting. You are so sweet, too sweet, for Logan. He feels guilty for liking you. But he can't stay away— he's hooked on your sugar, literally and figuratively.

-> Your walks home start to become longer and slower. Deep conversations woven between free coffees and leftover pastries. A kiss like cappuccino foam and caramel syrup, a contrasting warmth to the bitter winter. A fire in the hearth of his chest that was once cold and barren. -> Safe to say he's got a sweet tooth now.

[byeolbeloved]

Letters to Cupid -Kang Yeosang

Pairings> soldier!yeosang x typist!reader

Genre> childhood friends to strangers to lovers, angst, fluff, use of flashbacks, slightly suggestive, setting takes place around 18th century

Summary> for centuries, women named cupids worked as typists to write letters on behalf of senders who couldn't write themselves. You were always the writer but never the receiver for a love letter, yearning to be picked up by a knight. What you didn't expect was for this knight to have a familiar set of eyes, only this time lost from the innocence they once had.

Words from pupa : This fic is inspired by the anime Violet Evergarden! Also note that the writings in small italics are meant to be flashbacks. I had so much fun writing this so I really hope you enjoy it <3 The picture is also fanart I made myself hehe so I hope you like that too ^^

The typewriter clicked away, following a warm melody of the woman reminiscing her adventures with the other piece of her that is now battling the screams and horror of man. The warm scenery of her words contrasted the thunderous roars outside. The weather had no mercy on lovers under the moonlight.

"Please tell him I love him and I'll always be waiting for him" the woman said glass eyed. 

She's a gorgeous woman, with light make up and well done hair, although judging from the purple under her eyes you can tell she's had restless nights, tearful even, by her pink nose that was already prominent as she walked through the door. 

You always thought about how hard it must be to have your lover be in the military. You've seen many cases of these couples working as a typist. You had at least 10 letters a day of women writing to their husbands on how badly they miss them, some not knowing their ashes have become part of the land they fight to protect. 

"He will appreciate this letter dearly, Elenor. I will make sure to send it out by Friday" you say with a smile embossing a wax seal on the letter.

"Oh thank you Cupid. I was never good at using the typewriter so when an old friend told me about you I practically came here as fast as I could. It's been a month since he's been away, we've never been separated for this long.." 

"It must be so hard for you both. He'll be just fine El... I see the love in your eyes, he'll come back to them"

Education was a privilege, hence the reason why so many people were illiterate. For centuries women named "Cupids" wrote letters on behalf of senders who weren't able to write to their loved ones themselves or simply didn't know how to express their emotions on paper. It started from a voluntary organisation but has now turned into a whole company, well known throughout the land. 

You were born into the world of literature. Your father was a writer and your mother was a book illustrator. Work being the opening chapter for their own love story. From the moment you were born, books heavily dominated your life. Literally. Because even from the scene of your birth, where your mother delivered you unexpectedly at the house you grew up in, you were wrapped in ripped pages from books- that being the first thing they could grab instead of a blanket at such a chaotic scene of panic. 

You grew up with your mother reading you books and you accompanied your father while he wrote. Although you loved literature, writing your own book wasn't something you saw yourself doing. You much preferred experiencing a realistic event rather than coming up with a story, which is why you fell in love with this job.

You get to write true emotion while hearing another person's story and relationships. And you were clearly good at portraying what people wanted to express as you had tons of people personally asking for you to write for them.

Love; a topic you could rant on and on about. You dreamt about being picked up by a knight, running away from reality just to intertwine in each other's soul.  

However, you weren't such a hopeless romantic as you were very selective with the guys you talked to, let alone dated. No one has ever made you feel like a princess getting saved by the prince. Maybe reality isn't like the books, however, you felt that there must be someone in this lifetime who could make you feel like that.

The night was dark. Dark as the swelling wave of the ocean before the rising winds, when it bends its head near the coast. Rain fell hard against the concrete floor and the wind was so sharp it could cut you. 

The girl shut her eyes, trying to count sheep to calm her heartbeat but the sound of the rain only pictured her sheep drowning in the night alongside her.

"The rain won't get us here" spoke the boy, flashing her a smile that emphasized the pink red mark by his left eye. The red mark he told her was from a kiss from cupid after she pointed out how it looked like a heart. They were under the awning of a closed store.

"The rain is scary Yeosang" she frowned.

"It's only water" he held his hand out to the rain and let it get wet "see? I'm fine" 

"I know but I don't like the noises" 

"Then don't listen to the noises. You can just listen to me" he wiped his wet hand on the side of his pants and grabbed onto hers.

"I will protect you from the rain. I promise I will always hold your hand when it rains Y/N"

“Sorry I’m late, I just finished up with my last client for the day. Did I miss anything?” you place down your coat on the chair back.

“Only Jia swooning over mailman Tony again” Sakura chuckled while sipping her coffee.

“Seriously, when are you going to make a move? He might be single” Maya continued mouthful with a sandwich.

“Oh shush there shall be no romance at work. We have a business relationship and that’s how it’s going to stay. Now let’s get started with the meeting so we can head home before the weather gets worse.” Jia snaps and everyone hides their smiles at her shyness.

“Okay, this meeting is to just remind everyone about plans for next week. We will be accompanying commander Chan- everyone remembers him right? From last year. We will be writing letters for his unit, he has a different unit now. Make sure to pack warm clothes sinc-”

“Since there will be lower temperature in the North” Sakura and Maya said together in a monotone voice. “We’ve done this before Jia we knowww~” Sakura whines.

“Just relax and look out for the hot single soldiers” Maya giggles to Sakura who is now poking at Jia’s side.

“Business! This is business guys! We're going there for work. Plus, these hot guys are depending on us to bring back their messages to their families. No fooling around” Jia makes clear.

Once a year your team will visit military camps to write for soldiers. You’re usually there for 3 days excluding travel. Apart from some of the men being touch starved and looking as if they’ve never seen a woman in their life- most of them are really nice. Last time they even set out a mini farewell and thank you party before your departure.

The crisp sound of snow beneath your feet and cold sensation on your nose definitely woke you up from your nap on the way here. It actually felt quite nice, your surroundings bright from the white snow despite the sun not yet risen and the cold air felt like a splash of water to your face in the early morning. All nice except for the sound of Sakura and Maya’s whines from how their boots weren’t fit for the snow. This is exactly why Jia spent so much time whining about clothing. 

The soldiers shared cabins or tents. You girls too got your own cabin to share- unfortunately quite small so you’ll have to put up with Maya’s snores throughout the night, however big enough for the 4 of you. The main area had its own cabin. That’s where the soldiers mostly hang out and eat. 

As you girls made your way to the main area, commander Chan introduced you to everyone. There seemed to be at least 40 men in there, thankfully all divided into units so it was easier to organise when you’ll be working with who. 

Everyone gave you a warm welcome. You girls spent the first hour chatting with some of them, or you could say flirting for Maya and Sakura, before going into your cabin and unpacking your stuff.

Everyone was really sweet. Two soldiers, a long haired guy with a mole under his eye and another slightly taller than him with a dorito-like physique showed you around the area and let you know the schedule for breakfast, training and lunch. The area was quite open, you could see yourself getting comfortable here as it was very quiet. However, during all this you felt a pair of eyes on you. Though looking around you never saw anyone who could be staring.

“Slow down Yeo! It’s really rocky here” the little girl pants, trying to keep up with the energetic boy in front of her. He’s practically waddling like an excited maltese dog that’s about to get a treat.

“Just a little more, come on!” he grabs onto her hand speeding up her steps, now reaching his pace.

The two youngsters reach the top of the hill, overlooking the dazzling sight of flowers in different shapes and colours spread out across the field. 

The girl lets out a gasp eyes sparkling “This is… what you wanted to show me?”

“What do you think?”

“Yeo this is…. Beautiful” her eyes scan across the field, completely forgetting the distant yelling from her mom she was worrying about 15 minutes ago from why she took so long to get back home after school. 

“It’s gorgeous” says the boy, but he’s not looking at the scenery of flowers. He’s looking directly at her. Swimming in the ocean of her sparkling eyes reflecting the warm colours from the sunset. 

You are gorgeous he thought to himself.

The day was busy. Each unit who was on their breaks got their letters done and even though it was only day one, you managed to get lots done already. It was already pitch black outside and everyone was already tucked into their cabins.

Maybe you were still in work-mode but your body had no intentions to rest as you couldn’t stop tossing and turning in your bunk bed so you decided to take a step outside. You walked over to a corner with bright pink flowers contrasting the white snow, standing tall and so youthful.

“So beautiful…” you whispered, crouching to touch the soft pedals. They look like they have just bloomed. 

“Cyclamen” a deep voice from behind you startles you, letting out a light yelp from you as you turn around quickly. Your yelp almost turns into a loud gasp as you quickly identify the figure owning that deep voice. 

His hair is a light chocolate brown, long enough to be tucked behind his ears but not in a I haven’t thought about cutting my hair type of way- it was well maintained. He was taller than you but not enough so that you’re practically looking up. His body was clearly fit, arm muscles very prominent even from his camo print thick jacket. His skin was pale. So pale it looked like milk. So pale it emphasized the pink mark by his left eye.  

Kang Yeosang.

You had no doubt this was the same boy who used to have thick pitch black hair, sometimes patchy bangs from the self haircut his sister used to give him. The same boy who looked at everyone with sparkly eyes and clapped his hands together when he laughed. 

This was your Kang Yeosang.

“Those flowers are Cyclamen” he said expressionless, hands in his pockets. 

You don’t know if it's the cold air drying your eyes or your overwhelming emotion but you start to feel tears forming, so hot and full of sentiment they almost burn your skin. “Yeosang…?” you whisper but it comes out shaky. 

“They mostly bloom in cold weather” he says, still in the same stance.

“Are there any more flowers around here?” you sniffle out tilting your head.

“I’ve seen snow roses around here before. Would you like to see them with me someday?”

“I’d love to” you said with a smile, now earning a smile from him.

He takes his hands out of his pockets and steps closer to you, pulling you into a hug which you gracefully accept, your arms latching around his neck almost a bit too tight. 

“Hello Y/N” and that's your breaking point. You start sobbing into his chest muffling out I miss yous to which he responds with a hand on your head, caressing it gently. 

“I’m here”

The walk was quiet and heavy. Each step representing minutes lost from each other.

The girl is the first to break the icy silence “can’t you wait at least till next year? We just graduated”

“Y/N this isn’t my choice to make, I don’t have any other choice. It’s what I’m supposed to do” the boy says against his wishes.

“When will I be able to see you again?” the girl now looks at him glass eyed.

“I don’t know” he lowers his head but quickly looks at her holding her hand. “Hey, no matter how long it will take, I will always be here, yea? I promise Y/N”

“Please don’t break that promise Yeo..”

The following days you and Yeosang were practically glued together when you had the time. You caught up on each other's life events and even reminisced about your childhood together. It was almost like you were kids again, except you noticed how serious Yeosang is now.

You don’t expect him to have that same innocence as he had when you were younger. He’s a grown man now and also a soldier. Not a particularly happy go lucky type of job. However, apart from teeth smiles while covering his mouth with his hand, you haven’t heard him laugh yet. You missed it. You missed the days when you both ran around giggling at any little thing. Is that boy you loved, lost?

“But yea, let’s just say leaving a half opened can of soup in a tent for 2 weeks isn’t a great idea” he scratched his head and lightly chuckled.

You laughed at his stories with his cabinmates. So far he has only told you about silly fun stories with his friends, apart from him explaining the basic routine of what they do in training. You were glad he was able to make fond memories as a soldier, especially since you knew how nervous he was joining the military.

But something about you knew that wasn’t all. Has he really been doing well? What about the times he's been in battle? Has he been greatly injured before? Broken a bone maybe? Does he miss his family?

Did he ever think about you?

“Yeo…” you placed your spoon down. The main cabin was far too loud for both of you to have a conversation so you and him chose to stay in his tent for breakfast and dinners. His cabinmates barely stayed there unless it was for sleep so you had all the privacy you wanted. 

“How are you? Really”

“I’m doing well”

“No Yeo, I mean about everything. Do you like it here? Don’t you miss home?”

“Home? Well… Mom occasionally sends letters, I’ve visited sometimes but travel is so long I’d only have a day with them till I have to come back so… I’ve stopped visiting.” How long has it been since he’s had a home cooked meal?

“This definitely isn’t luxury heh, but I’m used to it Y/N. Don’t worry about me, I know what I’m doing here”

“Do you ever think about… me? Us?” immediately his gaze softens to your words. This is probably the first time you’ve seen a genuine expression on his face since being here. His hand is gently placed on your thigh and he brings his face closer to you. 

“Of course Y/N, I told you I’ll always be here. I promised” his eyes burn into your soul and your gaze meets his birthmark. Your finger moves by itself and goes to gently touch it.

“I don’t see you anymore Yeosang… everything is so different”

“I know. It’s hard. This is all very hard but we are going to work this out Y/N” 

Your faces are so close together you can practically taste his breath. His eyes land to your lips and for a second you could see the pupils of his eyes grow. He slowly breaks the space between you and you close your eyes, expecting to feel a touch on your lips  until he breaks off the moment with a whisper “I want to write a letter.”

“I don’t understand thissssss~ let’s just take a break” 

“We’ve already taken 2 breaks. Here, I started the first step for you, now remember what we did for question 6, it’s basically the same thing” the boy hands her the sheet of paper.

“Yeo I appreciate your help but maybe this is a sign from god that I should just give up on Math” the girl slouches on her seat kicking her feet.

“Math isn’t that hard, you just need to focus. Now come on we still have 5 pages left.”

“5 PAGES!? I might as well throw myself off the window” 

“If you finish this in the next hour” he leans in close to her ear “I might give you a kiss” he leans back to his chair with a smug look on his face.

You’d think the girl wore face paint on her face from the deep red that was now formed. Without a word she picks up a pencil and writes away on her paper. 

“Damn you Yeosang”

Some people get frustrated with slow walkers in front of them, slow drivers or even someone talking way too calmly, but the way Yeosang is working the typewriter makes you want to snatch it from him and do the job yourself.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to write the letter for you?” 

“It’s fine I got this” he continues on with his slow pace.

“Who are you writing that letter to anyway?”

“Just someone”

“Who is just someone?”

“A person I know”

 “Who is this person you know?”

“You don’t know them”

“Pleaseee Yeooo~” you lean in closer to him “I’ll give you a kiss if you tell me who” you giggle remembering his little tactic he used to use on you in school.

“Mmmm I’ll think about it” you huff in frustration and he laughs. 

He laughs. 

Your worries of losing the boy you loved dearly completely vanished as you finally see that innocent boy back. His laugh sounded like the doorbell of a childhood house, where kids would run to see if daddy is home. The last bell ring at school, when kids ran home to show mommy what they drew. The sound of the ice cream truck song amplifying as it rolled up from down the street. The clicking sound of riding your first bike, parents cheering in the background for balancing without training wheels.

He sounded like childhood and you felt like a child again. 

In what felt like forever, Yeosang finished his letter. Sealing the paper into an envelope ready to be read by this mystery person you so badly wanted to know. 

“Okay I’ll take it and make sure to send it out. Make sure to write the address.” you reach your hand out but he doesn't move.

“Oh no I want to keep it”

“What?”

“I want to keep the letter.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you want to send it to that person?”

“Not yet.”

 “We can withhold it and send it at any given time you want”

“It’s fine, I’ll send it myself”

Him protecting this letter made you even more curious as to who it was for. Surely he didn’t just write something for fun. Who was this friend? Was it a girl? Or possibly a lover? Surely not. Especially not when he almost just kissed you a while ago. 

He promised. You’re just overthinking. Right?

It was your last day with the soldiers. You only had a couple of letters to finish and by nightfall you and the girls were set off to travel back home. Absolute no bone in your body wanted to go back home. This meant being separated from Yeosang again and you weren’t ready to let him go yet, you only just reunited with him.

“Y/N, you have a visitor waiting” Maya points to the door, only to see Yeosang waiting for you. 

“I have a few more letters to write th-” you’re shushed by Maya when she lightly shoves you out of the room “Don’t worry, we got this, you go enjoy your last moments with lover boy” she whispers the last part although Yeosang surely heard judging by the way he looked away.

“Ooo he’s a shy lover boy too” Maya says before closing the door, you can still hear her giggles through the wall as you’re now left alone with Yeosang.

“Shall we go?” he quietly says. 

“Yeah, where are we going?” 

“You’ll see”

The two of you slowly walk side by side, occasionally bumping the sides of your arms. There isn’t much talking but the silence is comfortable. Almost too comfortable that you forget this is the last time you get to examine his features before the final goodbye for god knows how long it will be again.

You’re snapped out of your thoughts when Yeosang hands you a big white flower, a snow rose. “This is the snow rose I told you about” he said with a smile gently handing it over to you.

“Yeos-”

“Marry me Y/N”

What.

Time stops for a second. A long second. Even the birds stop chirping and the wind halts. You aren’t sure what just happened but your heart knows for sure that it’s a big deal as it beats so hard, destined to break out of you and reach his own, intertwining with his and merging into one. 

“What did you say?” you mutter quietly.

In contrast with your tone, Yeosang is confident. His chin is up high, shoulders back and there's a look in his eyes that show no sign of hesitation. 

“I want you to marry me Y/N” he takes a step closer, and another, and another, till you’re now backed up into the rough surface of a tree.

“I’m going to make this work, I’ll find a way to leave this place if I have to but Y/N, I can’t let you go again.” he cups your face gently and swipes his thumb across your cheek “I’m done keeping promises and making you wait, I want to be with you Y/N, only you” he rests his forehead against yours.

“Come home to me Yeosang” you breathe onto his lips before locking them together. 

Your lips dance together so full of passion and need it almost feels as if your bodies are intertwining into one. You feel his small smile through the kiss as you deepen it, locking your hands in his hair while his explores the sides of your body.

Cold air hits your belly as he lifts up your shirt to slide his hand against your skin, caressing your chest. If you weren’t so lost in the kiss you would have noticed that he was practically spelling his name across your chest with his hand movements.

Remembering that you both need to breathe, he’s the first to break the kiss. You’re both a panting mess but he manages you let out a chuckle “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Yes in every language Yeosang. I will marry you” you smile out taking in his lips once again.

You asked for a rose, but Yeosang gave you a whole garden.  

Two years later

“Tell me Cupid, what should I tell her? I’m so scared. What if she’s waiting for another man?” the man from across you says, blowing his nose into his now 8th tissue in the past 10 minutes.

“Sir Walker, you clearly love her right?”

“Yes! Oh heavens more than anything, I-I’d kill for her, I’d crawl on my knees for he-” he sighs taking a breath “I don’t imagine a life without her”

“Then fight for her” you say softly.

“She’s lands away from me Cupid! How will I be a man to her if I cant even reach for her?”

“Make that happen. You said you would kill and crawl for her. Put actions to your words Sir Walker and show her you love her. You are living in the same lifetime, right here, right now, don’t regret your choices and lose her. She needs to see you fight for her” 

The man breaks down but looks up at you again, composing himself before saying “Have you experienced love Cupid?”

“Everyone experiences love. If not now, one day, just as you wait for love, there is another person waiting for the same. Everyone has someone awaiting them” you softly smile. 

“I’ll do it. Tell her I’m coming to get her. I’m not sure when but from today onwards, she will be my focus” the man lets out a broken smile. Broken yet mendable.

“She will be waiting for you Sir Walker” you say before typing away, a paragraph that awaits a new chapter for the couple.

Your night ends with that heartfelt love story. You hope the best for the couple and your heart nearly breaks with his as you also can’t help but think about your person you are waiting for. 

The weather outside is mean. Almost in hopes of drowning man in its rage. The thunder roars and you’re left counting sheep in your head- something you’ve been doing ever since you were a kid to calm down. 

As you’re walking out of the building Jia calls you from behind “Y/N you have a letter!”

She runs up to you and hands you the letter. “Who is this from?” you ask as you’ve never received a letter before. 

“Hm not sure” she looks into a room, clearly distracted by something, or someone as you look at the direction only to see the famous mailman who has been working here years before you joined the company- Tony.

“Um yea I’ll see you tomorrow Y/N I gotta go, bye! Let me know who that letter is from!” she says from a distance practically skipping her way to Tony,

You don't get the chance to even reply to her before she's gone. You look at the letter and there is no address to indicate where it was sent from, which could only mean this letter must have been dropped off by the sender here at the company.

You walk out the building, still sheltered from the awning covering you. Your steps are heavy, unable to move.

It's fine Y/N let's take this slow you thought to yourself deciding to just stand there for a while before making your way home.

You curiously open the letter and start reading it;

Dear Y/N,

How are you? I am writing this letter to you while you are right next to me. I hope you’re not mad about almost kissing you and asking to write a letter instead. It’s just that I wanted to capture my feelings towards you at this given moment, so we can hopefully both look back at this letter.

You asked me if I liked it here. I don’t. I hate the feeling of knowing every movement I make can be my last, and that I won’t be able to say my final goodbye to you. I hate that I go to sleep at night, responsible for another lost man from his lover. I wish I could be able to come home from work and tell you about my day. But what can I tell you? About how many screams I heard? How bloody my hands are after every battle? 

You asked me if I think about you. My answer is yes. Painfully yes. I always think about what you could be doing at any time. If you found yourself love. I worry everytime it rains, do you have anyone to hold your hand during thunderstorms? I force myself to repeat your voice in my head because I’m so afraid of forgetting what you sound like. I always remember about the day I took you to the flower field. You looked so beautiful in that moment. So everytime I find a flower, I make sure to stop and admire it, pretending it’s you. Because to me, you are far more beautiful than any flower out there. 

I will come home to you Y/N. I promised I would be there. I promised to hold your hand. And I will fulfil my promises, even if it means fighting for my life. 

Wait for me my love.

Love,

Yeosang. 

“Damn you Yeosang” you chuckled out, a crack in your voice causing tears to slip out. You look up to the sight of the man in reason for these tears. He’s still wearing his uniform, hat covering half his face. He seems to have gotten bigger in physique too. He drops his hat and you smile widely at the sight of his birthmark, now holding smiling eyes.

“It’s raining” he said, reaching out a hand “I’m here to hold your hand.”

You completely ignore the extended hand and crash your body into his for a tight hug. An embrace with no chance of him slipping out. 

“You came home” you said into his chest.

“I came to stay” 

“And to hold my hand” 

“And to hold your hand” he laughs out.

Yeosang was your childhood. Yeosang is your home.

[novlr]

Hi, how do you write a healthy sibling relationship?

I have a really bad one and I want my characters to get along, but still fight sometimes

Any help would be great

Sibling relationships are the first and often the most enduring bonds we form in life. They shape our identities, define our roles in the family, and teach us how to love, fight, forgive, and grow alongside another person.

For writers, capturing the intricacies of sibling dynamics can infuse stories with authenticity, depth, and emotional resonance that keeps readers turning pages. Here are some tips for how to write healthy sibling relationships:

Make them unique characters

Establish each sibling’s unique personality and role.

Give each sibling their own distinct personality, interests, strengths, and flaws.

Show how their personalities complement and contrast with each other.

Establish the roles and dynamics between the siblings (leader, peacemaker, rebel, etc.).

Avoid stereotypes and allow the siblings’ personalities to evolve over time.

Develop each sibling’s unique voice and communication style.

Give them contrasting but complementary skills and strengths.

Develop their relationship over time

Show how the siblings’ relationship strengthens as they grow up and go through life changes. Maybe they grow apart for a while but then reconnect later in life.

Give their relationship a story arc, showing how their bond matures and changes over the course of the story.

Explore how the siblings navigate major life events together, like the birth of a new sibling, a family move, losing a loved one, or a parent’s divorce.

Depict milestones and rites of passage where the siblings support or challenge each other, like learning to drive, graduating high school, starting college or a career.

Show how the siblings’ communication and conflict resolution skills improve (or deteriorate) over time. Perhaps they learn to express their feelings more openly, fight more fairly, or establish healthier boundaries as they mature.

Give them shared history and inside jokes

Build strong backstories into their characters with shared childhood experiences.

Show them laughing over inside jokes and funny memories only they understand.

Use shared history to show their bond, even when they’re fighting.

Have the siblings reference shared childhood possessions or special objects like a beloved stuffed animal they both cherished or a secret hideout only they knew about.

Show the siblings using a private language, code words, or shared vocabulary that only they understand.

Have them reminisce about funny or embarrassing childhood stories.

Let them learn from each other

Show the siblings teaching each other important life lessons.

Have them learn from each other’s mistakes and successes.

Show how the siblings challenge each other to step outside their comfort zones and try new things.

Depict moments where the siblings offer each other wise advice or a fresh perspective on a problem, demonstrating how well they understand and support one another.

Show how the siblings inspire each other to pursue their passions and dreams.

Depict the siblings’ learning to appreciate their differences and see them as strengths

Show unwavering loyalty and love

Depict the siblings standing up for each other in the face of adversity or conflict. They have each other’s backs, no matter what.

Portray the siblings making sacrifices for each other’s happiness or well-being.

Show the siblings being there for each other during tough times, like heartbreak, illness, or failure. Highlight how they offer comfort, encouragement, and unconditional support.

Illustrate the siblings’ fierce protectiveness of each other. Show them defending each other against bullies, naysayers, or anyone who threatens their bond.

Depict the siblings forgiving each other after arguments or misunderstandings. Show how their love helps them overcome hurt feelings and find understanding.

Portray the siblings expressing their love and appreciation for each other through both big gestures and small, everyday acts of kindness.

[canmom]

when robots got muscles

You can blame @centrally-unplanned for this post. She(?) wrote...

The ‘chrome’ designs pioneered by illustrators like Hajime Sorayama (Sexy Robot from 1984, for example) tended to be more in vogue at this time (or just…a  hot girl, who is apparently a robot, trust me bro), you don’t see designs like this too commonly until later (ask resident robo-fetishist/animator expert @canmom for details on that timeline).

After a challenge like that how can I refuse? Although the question is ‘when did robots get muscles’, this turned into something of a historical survey of robot designs from the 80s on with a throughline of biomimesis.

(Originally this was just going to be an excuse to talk about Ghost in the Shell... but I gotta be thorough.)

This was all brought on from this picture from a 1989 fanart magazine...

by an artist going by ‘Facepunch Tatebi-kun’ (顔面強打たてびー君, Ganmenkyouda Tatebii-kun). I remarked that it was interesting to see these kinds of ‘robot muscles’ in a picture from 1989, since I thought that kind of design became popular in the 2000s.

On some reflection, I think I gotta revise that opinion! I think ‘robot muscles’ became a thing around the mid 90s in anime; in the West I think it took a bit longer. But you can also see precursors already before that.

So. One thing artists are super into is biomimetic robots. That is, robots whose form (and perhaps function) is similar to animals, especially humans. The word ‘android’ referring to a human-like automaton dates all the way back to the late 19th century, but the modern ‘android, robot, cyborg’ taxonomy apparently became established around the 40s.

There’s two types of humanoid robot that get a lot of play, especially in anime. One is the convincingly humanlike cyborg, which is the same size and shape as a normal human; the other is a what we call in English a ‘mech’, i.e. a big robot you can sit inside.

Of course, if your androids just act like humans all the time, then there’s not much point having them be robots. To really create the frisson of contrast between human and mechanical forms you have to show the mechanism somehow. This could be because the machine isn’t perfectly human-like, and has visibly mechanical joints - take a look at the works of @sukabu89​ for very inventive depiction of this theme - or, the android could be damaged or undergo maintenance.

When you attempt to translate biological forms into a more mechanical design language, the traditional way has been to use hard, rigid shapes, since these make the contrast especially clear. In more recent designs, particularly as we started to see real robots with ‘artificial muscles’ such as the ones created by Boston Dynamics, we get another sort of design language to express ‘mechanical parts’, and robots start having more biological forms with exposed plasticy muscles.

So let’s tell the story. We begin at the end of the 70s.

the dawn of mechaguro

For an early example of ‘mechaguro’ (a term I’m applying very anachronistically!), when a robot gets smashed up, we have Alien (1979). This film did a ridiculous amount to define sci-fi design language, and of course the alien itself blends mechanical and biological forms, with its glossy black surface allowing it to seem to melt into the exposed pipes of the spaceship. But let’s focus on the character Ash, a secret android who is broken apart in the second half of the film.

When Ash is torn apart by the alien, his insides consist of weird white plastic beads and a milky fluid that seems analogous to blood. It’s not clear what the function of any of this tech is - it’s intended to be vague and mysterious. The outside is biomimetic but the inside is anything but. He has a kind of artificial skin which resembles a latex mask.

The Terminator films are another major touchpoint for 80s science fiction. Late in the film, Arnie starts taking damage which reveals the Terminator skeleton underneath his fake skin.

The stop-motion Terminator model is basically designed according to the principle of ‘replace human bones and muscles with hard metal bits’. So you have a metal skull, metal clavicles (which are pistons for some reason), metal shoulder blades, hydraulic pistons generally in the places where muscles are. e.g. in the above picture you can see pistons that stand in place of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, and in this picture...

...you can see metal scapulae and piston biceps and triceps and a piston. The shoulder joint by contrast built in a very non-human-like way. Also there’s random tubes everywhere lol.

That’s generally how androids are portrayed in the 80s. The ‘droids’ in Star Wars are similar; C-3PO is an arrangement of metal plates with gaps suggestive of underlying mechanical details and rudimentary joints and pistons.

In Blade Runner, we have the Replicants, humanoid robots - but by the premise of the film, they are essentially indistinguishable from humans. So when the Replicants die, we never really get to see their robo-innards.

and now, anime

OK, that’s the big four Western 80s sci-fi movie series; what of anime? Of course, androids in anime go all the way back to Astro Boy. But most of these early designs don’t really focus on mechanical details all that much. Super robot designs are more like tokusatsu suits than anything. There were certainly instances of impressive mechanical animation in the 70s, with early experts including Kazuhide Tomonaga on Space Battleship Yamato. Then there’s Hayao Miyazaki’s episodes of Lupin III Part 2 which featured proto-Nausicaa flying a prototype of the robots from Castle in the Sky. It would be some years before anyone could come close to matching these!

The original Gundam in ‘79 famously started the ‘real robot’ movement [Animation Night, so let’s take a brief look at how a Gundam fits together.

Generally speaking, the way Gundams are drawn in Gundam ‘79 is kind of rough. The methods to animate these rigid mechanical systems in super accurate perspective were just not yet established at the end of the 70s, certainly not on a TV budget. The actual joints on the Gundam are left very vague, but it broadly speaking seems to move like a human in armour.

But the OVA boom was about to begin, and while it would be a while before we saw the heights of Headgear/Production I.G./Gainax, things were going to change a lot. Mechanical design and animation was about to get much more sophisticated very very quickly.

In 1982, we have Super Dimension Fortress Macross, with robots that transformed into fighter jets. Its robots are designed by Kazutaka Miyatake, who cut his teeth doing mechanical design for Space Battleship Yamato and Daicon. The Macross TV series introduced the world to the animation of Ichirō ‘Missile Circus’ Itano. [AN64] A plane with legs... honestly looks kind of goofy, but Itano’s ambition to have a highly mobile 3D camera that could move in ways that would simply be impossible in live action marked a huge step up in how robots are animated. And this would get refined even further in the film Do You Remember Love.

In terms of design, we’re really moving our inspiration from ‘tokusatsu suit’ to ‘military hardware’ here. A Macross suit has to look like something that could transform into a plane, so its silly little arms and legs have to look kind of plane-like. In any case, we are definitely still in a world of hard and rigid robotics.

Dallos (1983-4) dir. Mamoru Oshii is known as the first OVA, if not the first successful OVA [AN115]. It features a variety of mining robots on the surface of the Moon, which are generally less humanoid, taking their design cues from JCBs...

...as well as humanoid robots with fairly clear joint patterns...

...and more humanoid robots too.

The eponymous Dallos, however, is a huge humanoid robot that looks like this...

Here we have a pile of mechanical shapes that vaguely calls to mind a human face. It’s suggestive of motifs we’d see later in works like Akira.

A year later in 1985, Megazone 23 really kicks off the OVA boom in earnest [AN 103]. It also has a robot, in the form of a transforming bike that can become a humanoid piloted mech...

You can see mechanical designs and shading have become considerably more detailed; its motion is a lot more complex as well with a ton of indulgent background animation shots. The actual details of the bike -> robot transformation are rather brushed over. But to sort of sum up the design language: we have organic but hard-edged shapes contrasted by inorganic but round shapes. (These terms ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’ refer mostly to symmetry and a sense of ‘flow’ in the shape.) There are few right angles as such, but a lot of broadly boxy topology. The shapes are broken up by elaborate specular highlights in complex shapes, a motif of the later Kanada school.

OK, but that’s all variants on ‘rigid robot’ so far - what about the androids? What about the more directly biological designs?

Following the enormous success of Megazone 23 Part I, Toshiki Hirano got the chance to adapt his favourite lesbian cosmic horror hentai manga Fight! Iczer One into a rather more tame OVA which released from 1985-87. In terms of mechanical design, this starts to do some interesting moves towards blending biological and mechanical forms...

Of course it has a robot in addition to the requisite bishōjo and lightsabers. In contrast to the boxy shapes we’ve seen so far, the robots in Iczer-One have a much more curvy organic sort of design language. Still, there is not a lot of emphasis on the precise details of mechanical articulation outside of select shots. (It is however notable for the first ever Obari punch!)

Despite the change in shape language, these are still very clearly animated as metal plates and not yet muscles.

In 1984 we have a very important film (for this narrative, and in general), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the film that created Studio Ghibli. Here we have the ‘God Warriors’, giant humanoid weapons with the ability to shoot a massive laser out of their mouth. Rather than robots, these are very much biological in nature, having to be grown in a kind of cocoon. In the film version of Nausicaa, an incomplete God Warrior is released, leading to an iconic scene animated by Hideaki Anno in which the God Warrior attempts to blow up the oncoming wave of Ohmu.

The God Warrior’s melting flesh is gorgeously animated, bubbling and sloughing off in great big lumps as the skeleton pokes out from underneath. Throughout, Nausicaa is full of beautiful and impressive animation of both machines (mainly planes) and biological (the giant insects), but the God Warriors, as human-made lifeforms, bring the two together. However, this strand wouldn’t be especially followed up on for a long long time.

Right, but what about Bubblebum Crisis (1987-91)? That is, after all, the iconic 80s robot girl OVA. It’s inspired heavily by Western robot-related films like Terminator and Blade Runner; here we have ‘Boomers’ (never stops being funny) as androids that can appear convincingly human. Like the Terminator, the underlying metal parts can burst out. Here we have a metal frame designed to resemble muscles, and also metal tentacles.

The shapes of these robots are a lot more organic. The robot neck has tubes that sort of resemble the neck muscles, metal plates that resemble pectorals and abs and deltoids and biceps and so on. You’ve even got a direct riff on the Terminator ‘fleshy face falling away to reveal metal skull with glowing red eye’! Under the plates there are clusters of tubes which also heavily resemble muscles. Also you’ve got the classic ‘three small circles’ motif there.

Contrasted against them are the Knight Sabers, who aren’t cyborgs as such but fight in powered exoskeletons which fit the design motifs of robot girls.

These suits are quite form-fitting, with a rubber under-layer and metal shells on top. There is definitely some attention paid to how they’ll articulate around the joints. One very recognisable 80s motif is the sort of extending spike thingies you can see on her hat there; there’s also the jets that extend out behind the suit. And, you have that multi-layer shiny highlighting of course!

Still, the way the characters move in Bubblegum Crisis is still very squarely Kanada School poses; big movements, lots of held poses accentuated by flashing and line boil, not a lot of concern for conservation of momentum or anything like that.

For a contrasting strand we can look at the rise of the ‘Otomo school’ (if you will) of realism. Around the end of the 80s, a pool of talented animators were gathering around Katsuhiro Otomo. Their most famous work is Akira, but I’m actually going to begin with Robot Carnival (1987), a wonderful anthology of short films from 1987. This features a huge variety of interpretations of the concept of robots.

For example, for Kōji Morimoto, later co-founder of Studio 4°C, the robot is a kind of cobbled-together steampunk Frankenstein’s monster. It’s a very cool design with all sorts of asymmetries and exposed parts suggesting its cobbled-together nature. And although all the robot does in this short is stand up and then fall over, a great deal of attention is paid to the little details of its articulation and its movement through space.

Presence, directed by Yasuomi Umetsu, is notable for its steps in the direction of realism - Umetsu’s characters are hyperdetailed and in some ways over-drawn. The opening shots establish this is a world where lifelike androids are common, when an android gets his head kicked off and stolen by children. Here the robot-as-doll metaphor comes in, something that will be increasingly central in the next decade. The robot girl is essentially a human-sized doll in a room full of other toys. Her creator smashes her to pieces with a wrench; later her ghost visits him as an old man. We see the girl attached to a bunch of wires, but she bleeds like a human.

Cloud by Manabu Ōhashi features another humanoid robot, an Astro Boy-like child recognisable as a robot based on his segmented torso and legs and robotic ear... cones. Here the robot is a standin for human emotions, the boy’s struggles projected onto the constantly changing sky as he walks against the wind.

Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner’s Invasion by Hiroyuki Kitakubo (later to direct Golden Boy, Roujin Z and Blood: The Last Vampire) is a sendup of mecha shows in which two very goofy looking steampunk robots operated respectively by Japanese and Western crews duke it out, laying waste to the city around them. The Japanese robot is basically a big wooden samurai...

and the Western (more specifically American) robot is, uh

sorta big barrel with little eyes on top? I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with this design!

That’s really not relevant to our story tbh I just think it’s a neat short.

Chicken Man and Red Neck, by Takashi Nakamura, features especially distinctive robot designs. The film is kind of a dream sequence in which a terrified drunk man witnesses the revels of the machines of Tokyo, transformed into robots; the robots are extremely shaped, moving through a world that is pretty much just pistons...

These robots call to mind the dancing demons in Fantasia’s Night On Bald Mountain sequence, or even Bosch.

Otomo’s own segments feature the Robot Carnival itself, a vast mechanical structure built as... well some kind of entertaining spectacle, but which now drives around the post-apocalyptic wasteland dropping robots which explode as bombs. It’s cute.

OK, to wrap up the 80s, we gotta cover Akira (1988) [AN34]! Akira has plenty of impressive mechanical animation of helicopters, hovercraft thingies, satellite lasers and of course the famous bike, but it doesn’t really feature robots as such - but what it does have is a blending of mechanical and biological forms in its climactic sequence where Tetsuo’s psychic powers go out of control. First, wires start to spread like the roots of a plant from his robot arm - less an actual machine and more something he assembled with his psychic powers...

He takes a bullet, and the mechanical wires and muscles start to blend together and spread out like a slime mold...

...which he can extend as essentially a giant tentacle.

When his powers fully go off the rails, he bulges out into big blobs of flesh which have both veins and wires running over them. These burst out of the metallic parts as well.

He turns into essentially a giant biomechanical baby.

Did Akira invent these images of blending biology and machinery? Probably not, but I’m not really familiar enough with manga of the time to say. What can at least be said is that Otomo’s absurdly meticulous style could really sell it. Otomo was truly a god of perspective and detail; Akira the film was an enormous, prestigious production that threw ludicrous effort and resources towards realising his vision (which doesn’t mean it paid its inbetweeners much more...). A lot of the animators who worked on Akira would go on to be prominent in...

the 1990s

So, the 1990s. If the 80s was dominated by the later Kanada School, the new movement of the 90s, at least as far as film animation goes, was ‘realism’.

But before we get onto that, let’s take a brief look at Gunnm (1990). Known as Battle Angel Alita in the West, this manga by Yukito Kishiro depicts a world in which most people are cyborgs; it was adapted to an OVA by Madhouse in 1993 and became wildly popular overseas. Its protagonist Gally, aka Alita, starts out the story as a wrecked cyborg body like this...

Looking at this design, you can see similar patterns as we have so far. We have metal clavicles, metal sternocleidomastoid muscle, metal pectorals, metal spine. There aren’t robot muscles, per se, but there’s a lot of attention to detail on mimicking biological shapes.

Before long she is rebuilt (twice in the manga, once in the anime). Her new body is like this...

...which is to say a skintight bodysuit in the middle, and metal arms. These arms, although designed in a way that indicates hard surface and with a hinge joint at the elbow, are designed in a way that mimics the flow of muscles in a human arm. By contrast, her sorta-love interest Yugo has a body like this:

which gets mashed to pieces in the finale of the OVA. There’s a striking mechaguro scene in which Gally catches Yugo, but leaves him hanging by a fraying arm, which snaps, leaving him to fall to his death. Compared to later iterations of the ‘robot arm torn apart’ device, this one’s relatively light on detail...

Cyborg bodies in Gunnm are used as a visual indication of character type. Gally has curves but also sleek robo muscles: she’s a Beautiful Fighting Girl, sweet but also extremely powerful. A huge ‘muscular’ cyborg with wide shoulders is likely to be a brute. Yugo here has much more plain, simple shapes with visible bolts, not precision pieces like Gally.

I don’t know how much of this originates with Gunnm. I’m sure the idea of cyborg girls was in the air long before, but this became an influential example on the tail end of the time of the 80s bishōjo. One device that is notable here is the idea of a ‘full body cyborg’, which is only human down to the brain (or perhaps not even that). Body swapping is a major theme in Gunnm, something that would be expanded on before long...

And if that was going out, what was coming in? Let’s look at Patlabor, which traces the evolution of the Headgear artistic collective and IG Tatsunoko into Production I.G.. This is about as down to earth as giant robot stories can get, with robots as just everyday machines used for work and by the cops. But where things really go nuts in animation terms is the opening to Patlabor 2 (1993).

Here you can see some of the most impressive sequences of mechanical animation ever drawn. We see pilot Noa testing out the robot, and especially notable are the scenes of the hand flexing and of walking. Enormous attention is paid to the articulation of joints. The robot’s hand can swivel 360 degrees, unlike a human; however, like a human, the articulation of the fingers seems to be controlled by hydraulics in the forearm (whereas in humans, the muscles and tendons in the forearm control our fingers). When the robot’s foot steps, it flexes like a real human foot, with believable joints, and a sensible arrangement of pistons to absorb force.

It’s not imitating a human’s muscles, but the attention to the details of the robot’s mechanical design serves precisely to draw our attention to the ways it’s like/unlike a human - the robot’s hand impossible motion immediately contrasted with its pilot shot from the same angle. And the perspective drawing is absolutely impeccable. The robot is made of purely rigid structures, and the way rigid structures articulate is not at all how a human’s joints articulate.

The sequence above was animated by Atsushi Takeuchi. But across the board, the bar was getting pushed for mechanical animation. For example, observe this cut from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996-1999), in which the robot tears off its own arm and beats up another robot. The precision of the way the joints are animated and the way the robots move in space is just completely on another level compared to what Gundam had been doing a couple of decades prior.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about robot muscles, and we’re just a few years out from that now!

The year that robots got muscles, at least as far as anime is concerned, is 1995.

You can probably guess the next part. In 1995, we get Eva and GitS. Let’s start with GitS, to continue the Production I.G./Mamoru Oshii thread. The opening sequence of GitS, animated by - who else could it be? - Hiroyuki Okiura - has to be one of the most iconic segments of video ever drawn. Here’s a merely 720p youtube upload but go and find the place you have GitS stored on your hard drive and watch it in proper quality eh.

OK, yes, a lot of it is a naked lady floating around, sue me or whatever. But the sense of form. We see early on an appearance of ‘robot muscles’, here closely resembling real muscles...

We can see from the way this is drawn that it’s made of a combination of artificial muscles, solid segments, and flexible, fabric-like panels. One of my favourite shots at the beginning shows the solid segments of the skull clicking into place. Here we have a very clear contrast between the angular, hard edges of the mechanical pieces against the organic forms of a human body.

Elsewhere in the film, we see various incredibly cool bits of ‘wouldn’t be fucked up if a body did this‘, like the fingers...

Here, what we expect to be soft biological fingers is contrasted with unexpected rigidity, mechanical joints under a shell.

Also in this scene we encounter a robot body that has been stripped of her arms, legs and hips but is nevertheless still alive...

most extraordinary hacker in the history of cybercrime and you have your titties out and yet you still can’t get them to stop misgendering you, smh

For the Terminator, having its body smashed up and continuing to walk was a demonstration of its strength. Here, as would become perhaps an increasing motif, having a robot body is a source of vulnerability: people can do things to you that would kill an ordinary human but you keep going through it. Not surprisingly, ‘robot body maintenance’ is a recurring porn device. (One that GitS deploys in SAC s2).

But of course this all builds up to the all time classics of mechaguro scene at the ending where the Major attempts to tear off the hatch of a spider tank. Muscles ripple individually under the surface of her skin, her arms bulge in exaggerated contraction, and then her arms fully tear apart under the force.

Here, we’re showing her as mechanical not by contrasting rigid forms with biological ones, but by exaggerating the biological ones to the point of doing something extremely unnatural. Human muscles do not generally flex in such an individual way, nor are they strong enough to tear the arm apart, but robot muscles? Yeah, they could do that. This sets up the next scene where the Major lies unnaturally still, but can still exert control through hacking through her union with the Puppet Master.

Robots holding onto something so hard their arms explode has become... if not a recurring image, then at least one that was called back decades later in Violet Evergarden.

The final scene of GitS brings back the image of robot-as-doll, with the Major’s consciousness now uploaded into a black-market robot body that resembles a child in a dress.

This is further expounded on in Oshii’s second GitS movie Innocence (2004), with its Ballade of the Puppets in the soundtrack as Batou and Togusa (and eventually, the Major) are attacked by essentially an army of ball-jointed doll gynoids. The puppets’ movements are extremely unnatural and erratic acrobatics, constantly flipping all over the place; when hit by bullets, panels pop open to reveal the underlying brass skeleton. It’s a very cool image. (The thing that lets the sequence down is the extremely dated CGI and aggressive digital compositing.)

It also has Donna Harraway as a literal cyborg!

Now, the GitS movies didn’t drop fully formed out of nowhere, but draw on the work of Masamune Shirow. The manga has a somewhat different design sensibility than the movie, distinctive and shiny as all Shirow’s art. It is more rounded and organic, less cold.

So, the basic design of a cyberbody originates with Shirow. You can see it on this page (unfortunately from a flipped version, translation Dark Horse):

You might be able to determine from how the nurses are dressed that, yeah, the GitS manga is in significant part fetish porn. But really nerdy fetish porn, which is the best kind. This chapter is almost entirely dedicated to explaining how cyborg bodies are constructed in great detail, from the ‘sensory film’ (that’s what’s being applied in the opening to the 1995 film) to the hair implantation.

It’s interesting seeing how some of the more out-there designs of the manga, like Chief Aramaki, are transformed into the realist style of Hiroyuki Okiura. It’s Okiura, so it works great of course.

I don’t know if there are manga examples of such detail about cyborg bodies that predate Shirow.

Anyway, that’s just one of the two punches dropped in 1995. The other is Neon Genesis Evangelion. To the pedants: sure, the Evas are not actually robots, but they’re giant cyborgs that play the role of ‘robot’ in the story and they look like robots so I’m counting them.

Anyway, the thing about the Evas is they are incredibly lithe. They run, rip and tear and swing heavy objects around in a way that’s both weighty and distinctly biological. Their bodies are extremely flexible compared to prior mechs (look at how much the spines bend in that Iso cut from EoE!), but not without hard, rigid components such as the shoulder towers. Their jaws are bestial but feature mechanical-like components like interlocking hexagonal teeth and jet-like vents. They are in short a fantastic design that blends biological and mechanical features.

The impact of Eva on just about everything can’t be overstated, but as far as robot design, well. There certainly were works that leaned on the precedent set by Eva, as for example RahXephon, which also treats robots as something spiritual, prone to popping into a blob of weird little bubbles just like in Eva.

There’s a great deal missing from this account. I am very focused on anime because I’ve watched a lot more anime than I’ve read manga or played games from this period. So I’m sure there’s major foundational works I’m missing here!

the 2000s

When did the West start to catch up? eh that’s subjective - David Cronenberg was way ahead of the game! - but specifically in the sense of robots with mechanical muscles, I think the major points in the timeline go a bit like this.

In 1999, there’s the Matrix, which leans heavily on anime. This features a similar ‘robot takeover’ premise to Terminator, but here it’s biomimetic robots modelled after squids, with clouds of constantly moving tentacles that sweep behind them. After making a cool half a billion dollars, the Wachowskis decided to pay all their favourite anime directors to make short films. I’m not going to comment on every part of the Animatrix, since most of it isn’t really relevant, but I will point to this horrifying cut by Takeshi Honda in The Second Renaissance in which a robot woman has her clothes torn and then skin bashed off by a mob. The framing, motion, her expression of abject terror, and the ‘reveal’ of her ‘true’ nature, all viscerally call to mind a trans bashing.

On the manga side, a big one to mention is Gantz, a gory nihilistic seinen manga which ran from 2000-2013. The characters in Gantz fight in special latex-like suits which take on the appearance of muscles while engaging superstrength, but can also sustain damage that causes them to drip fluids from ports located at the neck and become fatal to their wearer. Gantz was adapted to anime by Ichirō Itano in 2004, but I haven’t seen it so I can’t comment on any notable animation.

Cyborgs are a favourite subject of games, but in the 2000s, games are really pushing art direction and biopunk stuff is in. Half Life 2 (2004) has its spider-crab like Striders and dropships and so on. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (1997) bases its whole concept around the sheer variety of weird creatures that would inhabit its dystopian factory. And I gotta give a shoutout to Septerra Core (1999) - in case one other person has played that lmao

At some point after 2005, Boston Dynamics became a viral sensation thanks to their robot BigDog. BigDog is just welded steel and hydraulics, but its lifelike hopping movement style definitely brought to mind the idea that the future of robots is going to be in biomimesis.

So, 2007, here comes Crysis to melt your PC! This is an FPS with the not-uncommon premise of being a supersoldier fighting (country America hates) and also aliens, but its gimmick was that you have a special exosuit that wraps around your body with artificial muscles, making you much stronger and manlier or whatever.

This is indicated by a visualisation that could be right out of a toothpaste ad, where tiny little balls drop into the character’s pores and somehow go straight into the bloodstream which is of course a void full of flying red blood cells. And so on. It sold the game, though! The ad there focuses almost entirely on the suit and not the character wearing it, who is basically an irrelevant soldier man. What it entailed in gameplay terms is that you have a mode switcher so you can have strength or armour or invisibility or whatever. But it’s cool military superscience, you see!

Anyway. Not like my preferred flavour of cyborg is any less stupid I guess x3

In the same year, Bayformers started. These films’ robots are honestly just visual noise, there’s so many moving metal shards going every which way that it’s next to impossible to discern any sort of underlying mechanical principle. A similar ‘overwhelming business’ visual effect would be applied the next year in Iron Man, kicking off the MCU. So mechanical muscles definitely weren’t the only expression of ‘hyper-advanced robot’ in Western visual media in the late 2000s.

I’m going to end my story with two more games: Horizon Zero Dawn and NieR Automata.

Horizon features a world inhabited by a large variety of robot animals, using the peak of AAA rendering techniques. The robots are designed to be biomimetic after both modern animals and prehistoric ones, and feature a combination of hard surfaces and softer biological muscles. For example, a robot horse:

The discipline of making designs like these now has a name: it’s called ‘hard surface modelling’ and it involves boolean operations and bevels and other techniques designed to create a balance of hard edges on a surface against the smoother parts. The design language of Horizon says that the hard plates are white, the soft parts are very dark and may be patterned like a cloth texture, and there can be small colour accents here and there.

I think you can definitely see the influence of Boston Dynamics’s robots (and recent military tech in general) in these designs, iterated on through a decade and a half of increasingly intra-referential concept art. They are visually very busy designs, but there are a couple of recognisable features that draw attention by being inorganic, such as the cylindrical fuel tank at the back. Vitally, the silhouette is very readable.

This robot T. rex for comparison serves as a world boss monster, and you can see it’s got a bunch of military looking attachments that look like radars and missile launchers and so on. As real tech evolved, so too did our idea of what a scary robot ought to look like.

So, that’s where this kind of design pattern has gone in mainstream games.

Now to finish, a brief comment on NieR Automata. Its designs draw hard on those of Ghost in the Shell. Visually it draws a strong contrast between the Machine Lifeforms, who have inorganic shapes (spheres and cylinders) and very visible and plausible mechanical joints, and the doll-like androids, who might as well be human (although A2 provides some contrast in an android who is damaged enough for the underlying materials to show through). The mechanical nature of the androids is communicated by the acrobatic way they move and the interface elements, and dead androids you find in the field - and later when they start losing arms and stuff, it’s a whole thing. But just like humans in Yoko Taro Games, they’re capable of dying in a puddle of blood.

(I guess if you take one thing from this post it’s that if you’re a robot, don’t expect to keep your arms.)

Robot muscles gives you a chance to give both the ‘anatomy porn’ of drawing something very precisely right, with the added bonus of giving you a reason to draw the muscles écorché, and the chance to make it weird and defamiliarised by splitting it with mechanical elements. In short... they look cool!

In this whole post I’ve basically not touched at all on illustration. I can point to a variety of illustrations of robot girls, but in terms of periodising them, I just don’t think I know enough. Though it’s safe to say that cyborg bodies in various states of construction or disrepair are now a mainstream of concept art - and that Ghost in the Shell is usually cited as an influence. I don’t know if robot muscles ever truly became the mainstream way to depict a robot, but it does feel like they’re increasingly common.

One artist I will briefly mention (besides sukabu), mostly bc I think they’re neat, is Haruyo Megurimu, who draws these very intricate designs of ‘necrotech’ which is sort of very biological robots extending out of human bodies - limbs extended on long spindly insectoid strands, jaws splitting open, that kinda thing. Can’t say who influenced them or anything but it’s a compelling extension of the idea into a particular corner of aesthetic space.

And that’s all I’ve got I think. There’s definitely big gaps like. More recent sci-movies. Western comics. Nevertheless, that’s an arc.

If you’ve read this far: thank you for indulging my autism.

[shubaka]

some kpts fic recs! here are some that i'll randomly catch myself thinking about again :')

GEN

Silver for Truth by snickerdoodlles

Tawan dug himself a grave when he hurt Kinn all those years ago, now it’s time for Khun and Kim to put him in it. (this is part 2 of a series but i feel compelled to rec this particular one lmao)

The Knight's Pawn by Yuujeong

When Big appears one day at Kim's doorstep as his new bodyguard, Kim is mentally prepared; he will not befriend, he will not open up and most importantly, he will not get attached. Korn made sure he learned this lesson a long time ago. Still, sometimes, on silent nights consisting of a cigarette and his guitar, he ponders on his past, on the days accompanied by an unassuming bodyguard with dimples and he smiles bitterly to himself. Or. The relationship between Kim and Pete, before everything.

KENBIG

Somewhere with Snow by gayzuko

"Everything's going to shit, isn't it?" Ken says when they part. Big sighs. "Yeah. Yeah, it is." "Do you ever think about leaving?"

KIMCHAY

Back on the Beat by Pens

On one hand, Kim is thrilled that Porchay responded to his ridiculous message. On the other hand, he doesn't really know where to go from here... he supposes he has no one to blame but himself. At least Porchay hasn't left him on read this time. Kim will just have to figure out a way to get Porchay to forgive him... through memes.. Illustrated and animated!, with some words in between.

clip by laesa

Korn dies and Kim slowly grows his hair out long. His brothers and boyfriend approve.

Come On, Get Up by phnelt

Kim gets kidnapped. Luckily, Chay has a very particular set of skills that he has acquired over a long career of being an ultra-fan. And he knows how to google.

deep in this sleeplessness by bisexualbard

“Kim.” Chay keeps repeating, and hearing his name from those lips still makes something flutter in his chest, even after all these months. “Are you saying we could have been getting a good night’s sleep for like a week now and you didn’t tell me?” He shrugs again. Chay keeps emphasizing words accusatorily, like approaching him and saying, hey I think we’ve been cursed so that we can’t sleep unless we’re near each other please let me curl up next to you in bed, wouldn’t be batshit crazy. Kim can't sleep. Chay can't sleep. Somehow this leads to Kim spending his nights in Chay's bed with the Great Wall of Pillows standing firmly between them.

From the Ashes by Water_Nix

Episode 14 canon divergence wherein Kim doesn't leave Hum Bar without Chay, and Gun gets out what he was going to say about Namphueng before Korn has a chance to act against him.

Heiligschennis by scattered_stardust16

Kim’s legs tremble with the effort of holding himself up, his pants and briefs are a mess around his ankles that neither of them care about right now. Not when Kim’s skin contrasts so beautifully against the black shiny polish of the piano he’s lying on. Chay could wax poetically about that contrast for hours. Starting with the way it makes Kim’s skin seem even more golden that it usually does.

Idolistic by ditchlily

Kim has control issues, and likes to seed his fandom with misinformation. Chay is a bnf with an unerring ability to spot the lies. This is a meet cute. Contains: weird courtship rituals, creepy cousins, far too much PDA, and Kim and Chay, teaming up to take on the world and take down family conspiracies.

Kim's Magic Pussy by imdeadlily

Kim wakes up and finds his dick is gone. MIA. Vanished. Displaced. Chay has no issues with this.

Moondrunk by TheCookieOfDoom

Porchay is a werewolf that crosses into vampire territory during his first full moon, an honest mistake that could lead to war. Luckily the vampire he meets cares less about their treaty than he does about the lost, golden-eyed cub stumbling through the forest.

Outside the Frame by just_slightly_chaotic

"So, P'Kim." Chay nonchalantly picks at the food on his plate, glancing at Kim from underneath his eyelashes. "What is the new MV going to be about?" Kim's heart picks up in speed. He wills it to slow down, without success. "I'm a prince who's been forced into an arranged marriage." Chay's head snaps up at Kim, eyes widening. "But I fall in love with a stablehand instead and we run away together." He's pretty sure he sees the world implode behind Chay's eyes. --- Kim doesn't need a social media manager. He's doing perfectly fine. Until Chay comes along. And then... well, he still insists he doesn't need a social media manager. But he does need Chay. (Even if it takes him a while to admit it.) (WIP)

tear out the threat of your love from my skin by booksnchocolate

It's not Porche's fault. Chay tells himself this firmly when it starts. This has nothing at all to do with hia, nothing at all to do with waking up one morning at 17 and finding his older brother firmly gone from his life. It's not Porsche's fault, but that is when it starts. Chay breaks. (please mind the tags on this one)

There Must Be Nine by Discophilia

Porchay Kittisawasd has felt unlucky for his entire life, he just never knew there was a reason. The morning of his 19th birthday, he collapses, victim to a dark generational curse that's somehow connected to Kim, too. Racing, Kim has to find a way to break the curse before Chay is lost forever. (WIP)

when i drive myself my light is found by IsleofSolitude

When Chay bought a car, he didn't realize hwat a great deal he got. It came with leather seats, a full tank of gas, a scowling ghost, and floor mats. Wait, what?

WIKTOBER: Open for Submissions. by wildelydawn

Chay runs an annual fic fest for WIK, a popular singer. Kim, a lurker in his own fandom, becomes an admin. (WIP)

Wikubus by AirgiodSLV

Chay knows that summoning a demon is a bad idea. He knows, okay? There are countless media depictions of what happens when someone decides to bargain with their soul. It never ends well. It's just... There have been a lot of rumors popping up lately in the fan spaces Chay frequents. Comments that suggest Chay's pop music idol Wik might secretly be a demon. Specifically, an incubus.

KIMPORSCHE

Bruises on both my knees by Lorio

So you're a tough guy Like it really rough guy Just can't get enough guy Chest always so puffed guy I'm that bad type

TANKHUNCHAY

and my mind came rushing in by filigreesails

Tankhun has never been kissed. He's fine with that - prefers it that way, even. IT's not as if there are many people out there who could meet his eye-wateringly high standards, anyway. So it's fine. Obviously. At least, until Chay comes to him with a proposition, and the prospect of changing the status quo suddenly becomes a lot less hypothetical

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

It's interesting to see Rook and Lilia expressing much sadness in this chapter. Before chapter 7, they rarely show much sadness when express a bit. But seeing Lilia expressing the years gone by for Malleus to be born and Rook have to use his arrows against dream version of Neige and Vil, it felt heartbreaking it is for the things they done to get by. I also forgot about Silver and Sebek as they never express much sadness. Sebek being in rock bottom on how he wanted to have Malleus's sadness while Silver being the child of those who took Malleus's mother away made him feel guilty. It makes me think Malleus will express much sadness soon.

This is just like how Idia express so much anger that his hair gone red. We already seen his sadness about losing Ortho in chapter 6, but never this angry excluding his overblot form. Although his anger is more of how his mother hack his password and he blames Malleus for it.

If this keeps up, we might see new expressions for the rest of cast that haven't seen before.

To be fair, I don't think we've really seen most of the characters express this level of intense sadness (save for maybe the OB boys, since the main story centers on them). The situations before just never really called for this level of a reaction.

Seems like a lot of effort was put into making sure these boys go through the wringer in book 7. Being confronted by reality-shattering truths (Idia, Pomefiore), and uncovering unsavory secrets about your origins and country’s history (Silver, Sebek) can do that. I imagine a large part of it is because "waking" them is done either by a strong emotional or physical shock 😭 Even for characters who don't have a particular trauma (ie Epel), just the realization of the truth contrasted with the false reality he has been presented with could be distressing. No one is safe from the book 7 feels... You can really tell the devs are pulling out all the stops for this installment; there's so many new assets from outfits to facial expressions and more! Some particular favorites of mine are Idia's new animated crying face and his new red hair + determined face combo:

As the anon says, we haven't seen him go full red hair in his 2D model outside of his overblot form in book 6:

Idia does go full red hair in his Dorm Uniform vignettes, but he does not have red-hair or introduce a new facial expression in his 2D model in the vignettes to match:

(Here are the Idia models that appear directly before and after the Groovy illustration appears in his third vignette:)

Anyway!! Really looking forward to seeing what kinds of new looks we’ll see on the characters in future updates ^^ I’m already seeing fandom buzz and speculation on what we might get!

[vermillioncrown]

@rozaceous and I are truly blessed to have you as a reader, @sunshinerotting

(replying to your post “@vermillioncrown 🫡”)

have been thinking abt your porn for like a day these thoughts are still out of order lol: needed to get (thrown) off to get back solid footing. love sex as reassurance + a tool to communicate devotion in a way not traditionally expressed w sex. also of course they were each others’ first fuck. societal ideas about virginity aside and disregarded this really was the only way to get themselves back stable. new and finished facet of their intimacy. been woven together this was just another thread

We're so happy that the purpose of the sex in this outtake was interpreted the way we intended! While Korvin does say "disruption" and articulate his thoughts behind his intent, reassurance and devotion was up to us to convey it through the scene rather than explicit dialogue or narration. It is quite difficult to portray consensual sex outside the dichotomy of romantic love vs lust because no matter what anyone says, even aroaces, we live in a society that socializes us to associate sex with certain ideas.

On average, our trained instinct guides us to those ideas. It's queer to have a different expression, and that different expression also illustrates how disconnected Allie and Korvin are from society due to their circumstances. It's also a very vulnerable act---even if we disregard the emotions (looking at some aroace talk online smh bc it's still an act with regard towards your partner, I should fucking hope, and that's still emotional vulnerability), it's still physically vulnerable. So, yes, we can take "virginity" to be instead first person they let into their shells, past their skin, in the literal sense.

​like he HAD to scatter her to get her to snap back into it and she clearly needed a mark of him inside her like. the creampies were grounding. it’s a metaphor. and also hot. fear i did not pay enough attention to the clothes thing 😔 was too busy thinking “there’s no way these two have fucked anyone before. why are they good at this” which. it was never going to be bad w them. they wouldn’t have let it personal level i found the aspecs boning to be comforting. u guys get it.

He also wants proof he is able to affect her in that he matters to her, he is considered in her choices. She wants proof that he'll trust her, that he won't leave, that his words and actions are aligned, and that she's safe for him. The creampies are everything you say 🤭 Nothing between them, complete trust at the moment and continuing forward, and hah. Oh, you'll love the contrast with the TimKorv outtake 🙂

Don't worry about the clothes thing---it's a pretty deep read. Allie and Korvin are very conscientious about their presentation, because presentation is armor. Tim notices their outfits, that they take things out to dry-cleaning, the difference between the twins' choice of outfits during the Cold War. And, of course, clothes are socioeconomic class signals, which both twins would mind, having a billionaire-in-law and going through Rich Gothamite Hell. They both treat each other's clothes with a lot of care compared to their own as an act of devotion and proof of knowing each other well (barring Korvin's tank top bc Allie was out of patience by then, but their mood was light enough to balance it out).

HAHAHAHA so like, we can't get away with talking about the "skill issue" (lack thereof) without being personal. They're SIs so. Both Roz and I agree (and I have anecdotal proof) that a mindful, solicitous partner that is inexperienced can fare better than a self-centered partner with experience. And we both read a lot of smut (par for the course with fanfic), I have a very vivid kinetic imagination and have done a lot of physical activity requiring fine motor control and body awareness, Roz's livelihood is Knowing Bodies and How They Move. And people should explore themselves and extrapolate from there.

The very high bar is a combination of ^^ the above, their immediate need to reconcile and demonstrate devotion, and their comfort with each other. They knew this was the one and only time---gotta bring the A-game. You're right in that it was never going to be bad with them.

And thank you, it means a lot to us. We want more aspec boning, we want it to be sold, not told to us. Glad you feel that we nailed it.

it IS narratively coherent it makes so much sense for them it’s another threshold to walk through it was a natural move and i love that they’re done with it and it’s comfortable. that’s such a novelty. and her getting the snacks in case he changed his mind. there’s care everywhere there’s intimacy everywhere and we knew that but i could feel the bubble start to reassert itself as soon as they get to the motel. i love when sex isn’t about sex. talking bodies fr. it’s 2 am im defo forgetting smth

For a 2am thought, this is pretty comprehensive. Written sex is rarely about the sex, or it's rarely just about the sex. Obviously, we wanted it hot and sexy but like. Character study. It's a 15k character study.

shower scene was very funny and so was them making fun of dick unprompted. 2 virgins having improbably banger sex. gotta blame batman

That's the thing with neither of them ever suspecting there's another transmigrator. You think you're cheating with prior life experience/knowledge, but the other person is just exceptional like the rest of the batfam, duh. Right? ...?

DPNF from Tim's pov is biased against Dick. The twins love Dick, he's an essential part of their lives, it's an automatic reach to mock him lol.

Oh, final thing with difference between Allie being more hung-up than Korvin over the improbable virgin killing at sex---differences between continued female socialization versus 2.0 male socialization. Allie and her circumstances make her more self-conscious, the whole thing with women always self-monitoring how they are perceived.

Korvin doesn't have female socialization in his second life that ^ guides towards that, but he's very strange for a guy that looks masculine enough because his first life was as a woman, albeit one that existed and was rewarded in predominantly male spaces as an exception. So, he has different hangups which manifests in the rabid squirrel piloting the 6'4" fuccboi currently entertaining you all.

Gender!

[monsterblogging]

Fuck JKR: How To Create A Harry Potter-Esque Aesthetic Without Any Harry Potter In It

So I saw a few posts from people mentioning that a reason people might be into Harry Potter is because of the aesthetic or atmosphere, and ya know what? I can't even argue that, because if there's one thing about HP, it's that it Sure Does Have Aesthetic And Atmosphere.

So! I'm gonna tell you how to STEAL ITS LOOK! Because:

JK Rowling considers ANY support of her work to be support of her politics.

Fan content/fan merch is still free advertisement for Rowling's work. YOU might not choose to give her money, but you can't be sure you won't pull people into the fandom who will.

Everyone should create more things that aren't tied to corporate-owned IP, period.

So. Most things in these films have an aged, antique look. You'll see a lot of brown hues, both on sets and on people's clothes. There's a lot of near-blacks (especially charcoals and walnuts) and lighter grays on the sets, especially from the third film onwards. (Wood is more often than not stained dark, while lighter hues are often provided by bricks or plaster.) The last two films use a lot of stormy blues and grays. Prisoner of Azkaban also emphasizes contrast between tones, which heightens a sense of texture. True black also appears throughout the films, such as on students' uniforms and many Death Eaters' outfits, and on the chairs in Malfoy Manor. White appears occasionally, especially on Hedwig, students' shirts, or during winter scenes, but pure white isn't otherwise really common. Paper or parchment is usually warm beige. There's also a lot of silver, gold, and brass, often appearing on things like dishware, tools, trinkets, Christmas baubles, and so forth. Bronze also comes up occasionally.

Reds, yellows, blues, and greens are pretty common throughout the films, even outside of Hogwarts, though you'll see just about every color somewhere. For example, orange is often found around the Weasleys, and orange, maroon, and purple feature in the divination classroom. Teal features prominently in Grimmauld Place (contrasted with saffron yellows).

Most colors aren't really super bright; a lot of the time they look a little faded, or like they're colored with natural dyes. If you use medieval illustrations to source your colors, or aim for earth tones and jewel tones, you'll be about right for a lot of what you see in the films. Bright colors are pretty rare; some of the brights we do see are in Honeydukes, Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, and certain magical effects, such as Floo fire.

A lot of light is provided by candles, torches, or fireplaces, which cast a warm yellow/orange light. Moonlight is represented by blue light in the first and second films. Blue light is also used for the Goblet of Fire and the penseive.

Another thing you gotta have in there is clutter. It should look kinda antique and give off a kind of magical or mystical atmosphere. Think books, storage jars, orreries, crystal balls, old lamps, antique clocks, vintage glassware, antique mirrors, old teapots, and little metal trinkets. (If you're trying to decorate a physical room, your stuff doesn't have to actually be antique, of course; antique-styled is fine.)

Texture is also very important, which can be represented with full or top grain leather book covers, stone walls, dents and scratches, cracks, embellishments, and embossing. Additionally, all damage and wear gives a sense of oldness to things. Stains and variegated colors also add interest. (If you're decorating a physical space, you might look into aging/distressing/antiquing techniques.)

If you want a space to look cozy, you don't really want bare or blank walls. Shelves, paintings, tapestries, and wallpaper can all help with that. Again, use brown, rather than black. Warm, yellow lighting will also help. If you lean toward blacks and cool lighting, you're going to have a colder-looking space.

Fashion in the wizarding world is extremely all over the place, ranging from stereotypical fantasy witch and wizard clothing, to pretty normal vintage clothing, to some wacky vintage-inspired looks, to the kind of fashion that would be put under the cozycore umbrella, to ordinary modern clothing. One thing that's absent is subculture fashion as we know it. (Bellatrix Lestrange does look kinda goth, but it's less a subculture thing, and more a "yeah we're putting our bad guys in fancy black stuff" thing.)

If you're trying to lean into the whole quirky/eccentric/old-fashioned kinda thing, you'll want to pass over the more modern and obviously synthetic type stuff. Also, patterns, textured fabrics, knits, mixed colors, lace, and other embellishments can add interest to outfits.

Architecture is also all over the place. Hogwarts is pretty medieval, while places like Diagon Alley give more Victorian vibe. The main thing is looking old fashioned and quaint.

To try and summarize all of that:

Browns. Lots and lots and lots of browns. Blacks and grays, too. Contrast between light and dark browns and blacks/grays.

More beige and gray than pure white; more charcoal gray and dark walnut brown than true black.

Among other colors, mostly earth tones and jewel tones. Very limited brights.

Polished metal and glass also add shininess.

Old-fashioned. Vintage. Antique.

Clutter, texture, patterns, variegation. Minimalist/clean aesthetic avoided.

Aged and distressed.

Lighting often yellow/orange due to coming from fire. Blue/teal light often coming from moonlight and certain magical light sources.

Now, here are some things we actually don't see. I'm not mentioning them to discourage you from using them if they're what you really want, but to inform you about them so you can consider whether they might throw off the vibe for you:

Green/purple/black combos.

Purple/silver/black combos. Pink/purple/teal combos.

Pink/black combos.

Orange/black combos.

Green/orange/purple combos.

Red/black combos.

Basically a lot of combos commonly associated with Halloween, witches, or vampires.

Big raw crystals. We see crystal balls now and then, but that's it.

Other natural items used as decorations - feathers, pinecones, sticks, etc. The one exception I can think of are the shells embedded in the walls of Shell Cottage.

Crushed velvet. Lots of fantasy uses this, HP films don't.

If you need inspiration, go look up medieval and renaissance diagrams and illustrations of stuff like the four elements, the zodiac, the solar system, and all that. Go look up alchemical symbols and emblems. Search up pre-WWII vintage ephemera. Go look up Victorian clipart. Look up stuff like botanical, zoological, and astronomical books and art from the 17th-19th centuries. Look up vintage wallpaper and fabric patterns. Look at vintage-style crafts. Research period architecture and fashion. Research European heraldry.

If you're wondering what exactly you're going to design around without Hogwarts and the Four Houses, here are some suggestions:

The four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water)

The four seasons

Card suits - Tarot, French, whatever you want

Holidays - Halloween, Christmas, whatever

Fairy tales

Flowers

Mythical creatures

Bugs

Birds

Any other animals you like

Ecosystems

Your own original worldbuilding

So yeah, there ya go. You don't need to keep participating in HP to indulge in the aesthetic.

[NOTICE: Anybody who clowns on this post by making this about them and their childhood, patting themselves on the back about their chosen means of "ethical" participation, praising the fandom, or adding any other form of irrelevant bullshit is getting blocked. Also, I don't want to hear about PJO or Earthsea again for the millionth time, either.]

[themousebehindthecurtain]

hello!!! now that the mice are in the picture i feel like i can start actually start pulling my weight with the "marketing" side of things so.......here is an art blog where i can breakdown some of the process stuff that goes into making the comic.

first! before anything! go read my comic! it's about a witch who tries to break a curse on some people who got turned into mice but it turns out they want to stay mice!! my sister and i work sososo hard on it and also it's silly! read it here @notinvitedtothemouseparty or on the neocities our younger sister made (mouse-party.neocities.org)

now that we've got some basics out of the way, when annie (sister) and I first started throwing this idea around we realized we wanted the mice to look like a completely different art style than the rest of the comics. the easiest way to do this would, obviously, be to get a non-annie artist to draw them.

i am a non-trained artist, outside of like. elementary school art lessons. but during the first COVID lockdown, i had started a silly little challenge to draw a mouse (completely unrelated to this project) a day every night before bed and sent it into the group chat we share with our sister. going back over these drawings, it was really cool to see how i progressed drawing the same thing consistently and we started to discuss whether or not *i* should be the one to draw the mice. which um!!! made me a little nervous ngl! annie is very talented! and i didn't really know how to draw hands!!

but when we put some of my mice on her backgrounds it felt kind of undeniably charming. the contrast between the watercolors and the paper doll-like mice worked really well together and i think ultimately ends up serving a good thematic statement. this comic is fundamentally about Growth And Creativity In The Face Of Weird Horrors And Situations Also™ and what better way to show that than conducting a story-wide psychological experiment to see if i end up going from being a scribbler to an all-around okay illustrator! could get better at art, could get worse! the goal here is fun and also to finish a project amen forever and ever!

the division of labor was set: i would draw the mice, annie would draw literally everything else

[micahulrichdraws]

Hi Mic, hope you are doing well! What are your thouths on moving from paper to tablet, i just feel like i want to try something new but i worry that it will take me ages to learn wail everyone my age is already master of the tablet illustration (i just never had the money to buy a tablet) and now i feel tiny bit like a looser late 20s pretty close to 30 to start doing my work on tablet i feel like people will see me as a lame grandpa. Idk i just have seen that after the age of 27 people have been supper rude and judji when it comes to my life choices like they do the - arent you too old to want to live off art and that makes me feel like a mummy 🙈 i dont think i am ThAT old or idk anymore... Just seenpeople on tiktok make fun of 30 year olds and then going on instagram and seen full time illustrators with perfect tablet skill at the ripe age of 21 i feel like a looser, my family has never emotionaly supported me about my passion for art and that took a tol on me emotionally i am not using it as an excuse just i do think some people get faster and more far in life just with thanks to getting some love and affection from there tribe and when you dont have that i feel things feel wayy heavier.... Sorry for the yaping, stay awesome and have a great rest of the year, sorry for the long post i just feel less and less happy wail been on instagram and more and more calm when i am away from it

No one actually cares what age you are when you make art. People who are going to be asses will always be asses. People suck, life is short, be cringe, none of this really matters all that much, just enjoy it. Also Instagram is going to feed you content based on what you click on - so if you click on stuff that makes fun of artists, it'll feed you that crap. Just stay off the thing.

Also, for jumping from paper to tablet is easy. If you can draw or paint on traditional media, you're already leagues ahead of most digital artists. Just pick up a cheap one off eBay, they're all the same outside of branding. Start in black and white just like graphite, then introduce colors. However, I'd suggest talking to someone who actually does digital art, all my stuff is traditional pen and ink on paper. Haven't touched a tablet since 2015ish, and only did that to show how much of the painting process is automated by Photoshop and a tablet. Not having to mix your own paints, blend your own paints on canvas, stretch a canvas, worry about overworking a spot, adjust the color balance along with contrast on the spot, learn about varnishes, etc., means that the computer and tablet automate 95% of the process for you - it just comes down to your technical ability to draw and patience to learn it.

Hope that helps!

[aihoshiino]

do you thing the incest plot in oshi no ko is just for author benefit? something the author inserted for kink/fetish/ect.

I've seen people float this accusation around and I'm honestly baffled by it lol. I understand the kneejerk 'for fuck's sake' reaction to the subject coming up with how it's often used and treated in anime and manga, but to leap to assuming that the ONLY reason an author could have for including it is because they're getting off on it just feels like a bad faith read to me. Like, obviously I don't know what's in Akasaka's head or heart but neither does anyone making this kind of accusation. All we have to judge him on is the art he has created and… I honestly don't at all get the impression that sibling incest is A Thing for him?

Admittedly, I'm not super familiar with Akasaka's work outside of OnK (though looking this up was how i learned that he was a background artist on subahibi and was the original character designer and illustrator for V3 IA??? insane) but from everything I've learned, I've never gotten the impression that sibling incest is a throughline for him and certainly not to the degree that you could call it a kink. I tend to find that when an author has a certain Fixation on a particular subject - sexually or otherwise! - you will see it resurface over and over in their work.

For examples of this relating to incest specifically, you often see incest quite centrally in the works of both Kunihiko Ikuhara and Yoko Taro, not because of any hornybrain reasons (AND IF IT WAS HORNY, TRUST ME, YOU'D KNOW) but because these are unavoidably emergent elements of their shared fascination with exploring complicated and toxic sibling dynamics and how we as humans unthinkingly cause pain to the people who love us most. Compare that to like, Tsukasa Fushimi (the OreImo guy) who very clearly just likes sibling incest as a dynamic, for better or worse.

By contrast, I've never heard anyone say that sibling incest comes up that often outside of OnK. The only example I ever hear is that one joke in that one Kaguya-sama chapter and that's kind of it. So I find it hard to believe this is something Akasaka has such a fixation on, he HAD to put it into his work.

There's also just the fact that… nothing about any of the framing with regards to the OnK twincest is remotely fetishy? On the occasions it's come up since 123, it's mainly framed as a gag. The most overly fanservicey it gets imo - and I'm really stretching here - is that one panel from 124.

Wow, so kinky. Much fetish. Like, come on, y'all. Mengo Yokoyari draws this manga. If she wanted something to look titillating and sexy, it would look titillating and sexy.

Actually there's a good point lol... why are people always coming at Akasaka with the freak allegations when Mengo is the one who has actually written and drawn mountains of explicit incest porn in her own work? God forbid women do anything.

But either way, no, I don't think the incest in OnK is there for kink reasons. I don't think anything in the series is there for kink reasons, purely because none of the framing of these elements feels remotely fetishistic. I think leaping to accuse an author of inserting a fetish into the story because you don't like that they're talking about a taboo topic is a bit silly. Like, we're not out here accusing Akasaka of having a teen pregnancy fetish, right? .... Right...???

Dear god, don't let that be the discourse next...

[cruyuu]

Yeah I hope sukuna gets a good ending. THAT fandom even liked sukuna despite all his crimes until he killed number 1 poll then suddenly they played the moral card, when they were even convinced GOJO would teach sukuna about love

And kenjaku even abused women eeeh

Honestly I want to see Sukuna smiles not smug, but a genuine smile for the first time, I don't want him to just make funny suffering faces and give those people more material

Hi, anon!

My gripes are not with the fandom (since I don't really care) but rather with the narrative itself. The story itself constantly says that there's no good or bad, but rather that everything is grey.

Like just look at 265 and what Yuuji says to Sukuna. Humans aren't purely good or evil. They're in shades of grey and all lives are created equal. They don't even have to serve a role, they can just exist. They exist outside of memory! (And this is coming from someone who couldn't hear his thoughts nor access his memory...)

At first, I thought it was weird that Yuuji was telling that to Sukuna if he's just going to kill him. Hell, he says he loathes him! So why the contradictory behavior? Why ask him to come back? Why not just kill him?

It is fitting for him to be at the receiving end of that whole speech only if he will live and only if the "end of the cycle of curses" is erasing the good versus bad (right versus wrong) dynamic which Sukuna and Yuuji embody (one has to die, the other live), but accepting the morally ambigious one. I don't know the end game plan and my thoughts are all over the place when it comes to canon because of that, so forgive me.

If Sukuna believes himself to be unworthy of living simply because of being selfish, of not caring for other people opinions and just living for the sake of living, then that explains his vehement anger towards Yuuji still allowing him to live. Because Yuuji hears and listens to other people's wishes and lives according to them, and hence he is considered morally righteous (both by society and by Sukuna), a total opposite of Sukuna. He's someone who's good and pure unlike himself. (But Yuuji himself says that is not the case and we, the readers, know because we've been following his story. He's morally grey more so than embodying pure good.)

The question which is asked is: Why isn't Sukuna condemned for not living according to what is right? Why isn't Yuuji passing judgement onto him? Why isn't he dead but is free to return to his body? He's the epitome of evil, he's a vile monster, he's the absolute worst contrasting Yuuji's absolute best, and if he continues to live he'll just cause more death and misery to Yuuji, so why isn't he dead?

And the answer is: "Because there's no strictly good or bad. I'm not playing the role of a hero and you're not playing the role of a bad guy. We're just ourselves."

Hence, Sukuna cannot be condemned even though he represents someone who deserves to be. This is why he's The Fallen. The one banished from Heaven. The one who's supposed to recieve punishment for his wicked deeds.

Well, if he's the Fallen, then Yuuji is as well which is cleverly illustrated in the narrative:

He did recieve punishment before, technically. That's why his body was destroyed and why he dwelled within the fingers and never made it out with a proper vessel. He was destroyed but he still survived, and managed to reincarnate himself in a different era which is not treating him the same as the one that did before. Instead of being met with distaste and caution, it's everything opposite. It's everything he can't understand. He's being praised, he's being loved, he's being lifted into Heaven again (and yet he ate his twin and was poor, so technically, he was somebody society wouldn't look at at all).

Yuuji was made to he his vessel, yet again, he's not what Sukuna expected. Instead of being perfect, he's a cage. Instead of being insignificant, he is strong. Instead of being a polar opposite, rejecting everything, he's just taking everything from Sukuna and being accepting, greeting him and interacting with him like he's an old friend despite the fact that they are enemies.

Do you see how everything is the opposite of itself? Quite amazing really.

This is why I love the idea of him surviving. He deserves a happy ending as much as everybody else because everybody was satisfied in the manga despite being selfish, cruel, whatever. If they can, then why can't he? If their mistakes can be forgiven, why can't his?

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello! My play group has recently begun a PF2e game and we're enjoying it, but as an almost-forever-GM running one-shots looking for The Next Big Game to run I'm definitely noticing a trend of "a small run of bad rolls has decided you lose" that stands in contrast to a more subjectively "forgiving" system like Cypher or Quest. I know any dice-based game can theoretically end up with the dice deciding "you lose tonight," but it got me to thinking about that feeling in trying new systems. We definitely love mechanics in play - i.e. I'm not strictly looking for diceless systems, but they're not off the table either - so I'd love to hear about games you like and think are on the forgiving side of the spectrum with regards to bad luck streaks. Thank you!

THEME: “Forgiving” Games.

Hello friend, I love these kinds of games a lot. Here's a few outside of Numenera, which you already seem to know about. I tried to stick with games that have some longevity, although I'm not sure how long you can play Our Haunt as a campaign.

Vaesen, by Free League Publishing.

Welcome to the Mythic North – northern Europe of the nineteenth century, but not as we know it today. A land where the myths are real. A cold reach covered by vast forests, its few cities lonely beacons of industry and enlightenment – a new civilization dawning. But in the countryside, the old ways still hold sway. There, people know what lurks in the dark. They know to fear it.

Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is written by Nils Hintze and based on the work of Swedish illustrator and author Johan Egerkrans. Vaesen presents a dark Gothic setting steeped in Nordic folklore and the old myths of Scandinavia. The game mechanics utilize an adapted version of the award-winning Year Zero Engine.

Vaesen allows players to do something called pushing the roll, although you can only do it once per any given action. You will roll a number of six-sided dice according to a skill + attribute combination, and aim to roll 6’s, which are successes. Pushing the roll allows you to re-roll any dice that did not come up as a 6, thus giving you a second chance - or a chance to be more effective, if you need more than one 6 to do what you want to do.

Since Vaesen is a horror game, however, this push doesn’t come without a cost. Choosing to Push a roll means that your character will have to take on a condition, which is represented as either a Physical or Mental injury or affliction. Take too many in the same category, and your character becomes Broken, thus requiring immediate medical attention. Conditions can be healed and cured, so how deadly your game is depends on how little (or much) rest time your characters have in between encounters.

Genesys, by Edge Studio.

Face down a dragon as a brave knight, hack into a corporate security system as an elite runner, set sail in your airship. Unlimited adventure awaits you in Genesys,  a new roleplaying system designed for a variety of settings and limited only by your imagination.

The Genesys experience begins with the Genesys Core Rulebook, which features an explanation of the innovative narrative dice system and core mechanics of the game, an overview of five different settings in which to place campaigns, and advice for Game Masters to craft a myriad of adventures with unparalleled freedom.

So I’d really like to recommend the Star Wars RPG that spearheaded this system, but as far as I understand it’s getting harder and harder to get a hold of. The core system, however, is still available on DriveThruRPG, and I really like how it handles dice rolls. The Genesys system uses a custom set of dice that have three different levels of results: advantage/threat, success/failure, and triumph/despair. These symbols typically cancel each-other out. Both positive and negative dice have a number of different symbols on their faces, and rolling more successes for example, means you’re not going to have less advantages, while rolling a higher number of threats will lead to less failures.

This means that the two most common rolls you will get will be Success with a Threat and Failure with an Advantage. Therefore each roll has both a positive and negative result. If you end up rolling extra-special dice, you might end up with a Triumph and/or a Despair, which happen regardless of any other rolls. So you could have a Failure with an Advantage and a Triumph - which might mean that maybe you don’t unlock that door, but maybe you hear someone coming and duck into a hidey-hole before they show up - and they turn out to be an ally.

Genesys is a toolkit that you can use to make your own game, but if you want a setting to go with it, you might want to check out Realms of Terrinoth (Fantasy), Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible (gonzo sci-fantasy), or Shadow of the Beanstalk (cyberpunk).

Masks: A New Generation, by Magpie Games.

Halcyon City has had more than its fair share of superheroes, superteams, supervillains, and everything in between. Your team of young supers must forge your own path amidst the pressures of a world full of people telling you what to do and who to be, and kick some butt along the way!

Masks: A New Generation is a superhero tabletop roleplaying game full of action, youthful angst, and dazzling bravery. Take on the roles of members of the latest generation of superheroes, young adults trying to figure out who they are and what kind of heroes they want to be.

MASKS is well-known and for a good reason. It’s an excellent introduction to the PbtA framework, and contains a lot of solid advice for the person who’s running the game. One of the core pieces of advice that you can take from this game to others in the same system-family is that of Soft and Hard moves. When a PC rolls a 6 or less, the ball is in your court, but as the GM, it’s up to you how bad the character fails. Soft and Hard moves are a key part of this.

While a straight-up failure may be needed once in a while, sometimes all you need to do is telegraph danger, and give your players another chance to try a different approach. This is called a Soft Move. You might place the characters in an eerie atmosphere but give them a chance to act, or present them with an NPC asking difficult questions, but give them space to answer. You might not even require them to roll at all - if you think that the hero should be able to do something, they’ll do it.

Finally, since Masks is about teenage superheroes, death isn’t really on the table. What’s at stake is their self-image, and that is reflected in the emotional damage the characters take. This chance to wrestle with why they truly are might even be something welcome for the players to dig into - I know me and my friends sometimes found moments of interpersonal conflict to be the most rewarding.

Endeavour, by Armiger Games.

You are an officer aboard the Interstellar Confederation Ship Endeavour. Your mission is to explore the galaxy. You will travel deep into uncharted space where you will encounter strange phenomena, make first contact with alien civilizations, and help those in need.

This is an optimistic-science fiction game. It is a game about a future in which humanity has progressed beyond the kinds of internecine conflicts that plague modern society. Advanced technology is common and has created a post-scarcity society throughout the Interstellar Confederation.

Stories in Endeavour generally involve some kind of moral quandary. Moreover, the futuristic setting acts as lens through which we can view contemporary social issues. The best such stories are fundamentally about the difficult choices the crew are asked to make and how they are affected by their experiences.

Endeavour is a play-set for AGON, a game about Greek Heroes setting out to make a name for themselves. You need AGON to play, but the rules for both these games take a very unique approach to solving problems.

Almost every conflict present in Endeavour is a collaborative Challenge. This means that any time an obstacle presents itself, the group has a chance to face it as a team. Facing Challenges as a team increases chances of success in two ways: in one way, since each player might be participating, there is a higher chance that one person or another rolls a high enough number to pass the challenge. However, players can also choose to aid each-other, foregoing a chance to gain Distinction but improving another player’s chance at success.

Our Haunt, by Rae Nedjadi.

We are ghosts. We are in a house we don't recognize. We have a handful of memories, and these memories are brief moments and flashes of barely something. The Living are nearby, and they encroach on our space, making their demands. Worse, there is a Thing in the Walls. It is ancient, inhuman. Hungry, yearning. Angry.

But this is Our Haunt now. This is our home, and we only have each other as family. If we take care of each other, good things will happen. We just know it.

Our Haunt uses a diceless system called Belonging Outside Belonging, or No Dice, No Masters. This can be GM-less, but it doesn’t have to be - and I definitely recommend checking other games that use this system if you want to control the level of failure.

BoB games use a token-based economy, where following certain prompts on your character sheet will give your character the ability to use other abilities listed on their character sheet. This creates a rhythm, between moves that invite interesting interactions or complications, and moves that push the story forward, or allow you to do something special.

Each playbook usually also has special moves that the character can do for free, that neither earn nor spend a token. Because the use of tokens is up to the players, failure will only happen when you decide it happens, and every failure banks a potential success, so even if Our Haunt isn’t what you’re looking for tone-wise, I definitely recommend checking out other Belonging outside Belonging games.

Slugblaster, by Wilkie’s Candy Lab.

In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever.

This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool.

Forged in the Dark games allow you to succeed at least partially on a result of a 4 or higher, so you’re much more likely to succeed with a cost than straight up fail, and even if you do take some kind of consequence, that consequence can always be thrown off by using something called a Resistance Roll. The original system, Blades in the Dark, still felt pretty brutal if you played it as written. However, Mikey Hamm, the designer for Slugblaster, wanted to make a game about teenagers hoverboarding across dimensions, not hardened criminals surviving in a brutal city, so he made some key changes.

Kids in Slugblaster may take “slams”, but no damage is permanent. Staying in another dimension too long may trigger an unpleasant experience called peelback, but it doesn’t kill you, and if you log a bunch of doom (the game’s Stress equivalent), you don’t take a permanent condition - you worry your folks, or have to spend your extra free time doing homework. At its core, Slugblaster’s biggest threat is losing your status - you’re not really in physical danger.

Other Games to Check Out

Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon.

Spectaculars, by Scratchpad Publishing.

[mask-of-prime]

V/T and Even More Tiifu

Was horribly artblocked from writing the plot for the remainder of VG's storyline and had been overcome with sudden Tiifu brainrot out of nowhere at the same time, so I did the only thing that was making me feel better: Ship Art.

You know how Kiara and Kovu are known for their strictly round Pridelander features vs strictly angular Outsider features respectively, or how Simba and Nala seem to contrast with square features and saturated, reddish color scheme vs neutral/greenish colors and smooth, slanted features? Vitani and Tiifu's physical gimmick seems to be contrasting body types lol. From the way I design their definitive adult models, Vitani is underweight with a broad upper body while Tiifu is overweight with narrow shoulders and a curvy lower body.

A revelation I've had the past few days is that I seem to have an easier time drawing round Pridelander characters with a tablet rather than a mouse. I normally just use a mouse at home and only just started getting properly used to drawing with a tablet provided at my school. I'd better start getting used to using a tablet, it's a required industry standard.

Another thing I seem to be experimenting with is this kinda xeroxed look that Silver Age Disney films once had, like that sketchy, barely-erased lineart.

Top left is referenced from this lovely cat picture sent to me, and the bottom right takes inspiration from those videos of people squishing animals' faces when getting really into petting them lol (like this for example)

Other illustrations include sketches of expressions Tiifu is least likely to show, a fullbody sketch showing her (lowkey medicine cat-like) hunting party healer attire, with a quadruped-accessible pouch crafted by none other than Makini.

Lastly, on the top right is a cold-ridden Vitani (this one is a visual I often get -- no matter what comfort character -- when I feel immensely stressed or upset. Thinking about it now and I'm wondering if a hurt/comfort visual like that might stem from the fact that I wish stress was visible like being sick was, and secretly wishing for that attention and babying if someone were to notice)

[ripplestitchskein]

The Story Foundations

Episode 2: LooLoo Land

Please see the master post for this series here. As always I try to only view this through what is shown in the canon content of the show, I don’t take into account outside media like the Sinstagram posts or things stated outside the text by the creators unless they are incredibly important as I feel the text should have everything the audience needs.

Let us begin.

The first thing I wanna talk about is the episode’s warning. Which sounds strange until you realize it warns for “sad horny demons”. A huge criticism I see, and that people often complain about, is Stolas “turning into” a sad owl boy and I talk about it a lot in my metas because the text tells us the opposite constantly. I just thought it was hilarious that the opening warning on the 2nd episode ever actually warns the audience about this outright. I also love that it’s plural, because Blitzø is also a sad horny demon. Honestly most of them are.

Anyway, to the episode:

The first shot is an establishing shot on Stolas’s huge mansion, specifically the balcony. I’m going to spend a few minutes here because I think the contrast between the Pilot (which is firmly non-canon but will come up a few times here to illustrate some key points).

The colors in the original Pilot for Stolas are desaturated, his royal iconography is his actual face coming out of a book and wearing a crown. There are other little marks in the stone that look like the book with fire coming out of it, and little crowns. The building is gray and a dull reddish pink and looks very blocky and severe. The balcony is the central focus of the establishing shot because Blitzø will exit it later but it’s very small.

In the actual canon our first time seeing the palace is just as grand but the building is more reflective of the “new” Stolas. I can’t think of a better visual representation of a character undergoing development changes in the pre-production phase of the creative process. It really shows how much the direction with Stolas changed as they began the real fleshing out process with him. The new palace is beautifully saturated, constellations on the walls, phases of the moon and plant vines in gold replace the previous iconography. The doors are a sun and moon. And the balcony is huge and centrally focused. I love that instead of the front of the palace or an overhead shot to show its grandeur we come in again at the balcony which is so pivotal throughout the series.

We have a voice over of a scared child calling for “Mommy, Daddy”. Initially I read this as her calling for whoever but rewatching and with more context from the episode and show overall I kind of read it now, after hearing what her nightmare was about, as Mommy, Daddy! She’s calling for her mother because something has happened to her father. The only reason I mention it is because of the episode being focused on the Father/Daughter relationship, the fact that Stella says “You do it” when Stolas wakes her saying Via is calling, and that a source of Octavia’s anxiety is her father leaving and being unable to find him (I have A LOT of theories about this as foreshadowing, especially with Stella dismissing her daughter and not being a source of comfort in the past or present, but that’s another post for another time).

This is one of those things where I war with knowing as a writer that you will absolutely make deliberate decisions like this with otherwise mundane dialogue, but also that sometimes you write things without further intent because that’s just a normal thing people say. Kids wake up yelling for their caregivers. But there is also a very real thing in productions like this where every line and every visual counts and is poured over and deliberate. Not only because you are paying people to perform and animate it, so you can’t waste it, but also because it’s such a short format, a lot has to happen in 13-30 minutes and you don’t want to waste a second . However, in this show, sometimes the dialogue is for the joke, because the VA improvised something funny, or for the shock value, so I don’t know how deep I should get, or how much emphasis to put on some things. I do my best.

So I’m not sure if it’s actually speaking to anything deeper, I might be putting more on this than needs to be said, but that’s who I am as a person.

Anyway, Octavia is having a bad dream. The visuals of her room are really telling. Her artwork is stars and moons and drawings of her and her father. The portrait is her and her father. Her nightmare is not about her losing her parents, but her father specifically. Most of this is to setup the episode conflict for Via about losing him and the overall stress of a divorce on a child, but some of it is also to show the disparity between her relationship with each of her parents. It is Stolas who gets up to console her, it is Stolas who features in the decor of her childhood bedroom, it is Stolas who reaches out to spend time with her later.

The grimoire follows Stolas into the room, and we get a new glimpse into his abilities, both the telekinesis and the portal.

Stolas begins singing, the song really sets up his main character drivers, he used to think he was bold, he used to think love would be fun, he feels his stories have already been told except for Via’s. He tells us he is dissatisfied with his life except for Via from very early on. This really gives us a quick brush of what underlies Stolas’s issues in the series and it’s a beautiful song. Baby Octavia being comforted and sleeping even through this grand collapse of a celestial body happening around her, because she is safe with her father is just great visually.

Octavia falls asleep peacefully and the scene abruptly changes to the present day and the contrast between then and now. Her room is devoid of any indications of her father now. There are no pictures or drawings on the wall.

She is awakened from sleep by the sound of her parent’s fighting, of Stella throwing things and yelling about Stolas fucking an imp.

Stella’s issue doesn’t seem to be that Stolas slept with someone else, but that who he slept with is an imp. Stolas says it happened so fast he didn’t have time to get a hotel and Stella is more concerned that getting a hotel is plebeian and lower class. This really shows us the state of their relationship, these aren’t people who were in a committed marriage where the adultery was the issue on either side. Stella isn’t mad he cheated, she’s mad about who he cheated with, and Stolas doesn’t feel guilty he cheated, just that he didn’t have time to do it more discreetly.

Octavia puts on a very apt song about her world burning down around her. Stella is throwing plants and servants.

“Do you want to fuck this one too?”

“No of course not.”

“You are a fucking embarrassment.”

This dialogue tells reinforces two things, that the issue is not the actual cheating for Stella but the social class of who he cheated with. For Stolas it’s not an imp fetish, or fucking someone of a lower station, but a very specific person.

There is a portrait in the room of a happier Stolas and Stella with Octavia with the LooLoo Land apple. Stella has her arms crossed and she’s slightly apart but her face is indulgent and slightly smiling. Stolas is focused entirely on Octavia and smiling hugely. A little sign that they both tried to make the best of things, especially for Octavia. Their home was at one point a happier one. At least visually, I talk a lot about how images are important to Stolas, this one is no exception, we see a relatively happy family but the underlying truth is that it wasn’t, Stolas sang about his unhappiness as early as Via’s childhood and we see the truth in the show’s reality.

Stella exits, screaming and destroying more things. Stolas meanwhile does what Stolas does and acts bright and cheery, greeting his daughter exuberantly like nothing is wrong. She mentions she’s listening to a song My World is Burning Down Around Me by Fuck You Dad, which we could jokingly think of as “theme stared”.

She’s asks if they are done screaming for the day, followed by Stella screaming and Stolas ignoring the question entirely and suggesting they go to LooLoo Land. Octavia is not thrilled with the idea, saying she is not five anymore, a time when she was happier and her family wasn’t falling apart.

Stolas says he’s arranging for security and he is very pumped up by his recent dalliance, exuding a different sort of confidence about people wanting them for their money and their bodies.

We get Stolas saying “the only man who can fuck me” and Octavia being rightfully weirded out. This line tells us he’s not actually calling because he needs a service, he wants to spend time with Blitzø.

Cut to Blitzø in his office being fucking bizarre with the Millie and Moxxie dolls and shoving them in his pants.

On his desk, and the focus of most of the shot, is a picture that says #1 Bitch with it written out and replaced with Boss but he appears to be wearing a robe very similar to Stolas’s (it does not appear to be the exact same one though) with a black rose in his mouth and on the picture is a paper crown that Blitzo dons with a little musical noise as he talks to the Goetia. The camera focuses on this picture for a long time and during the course of their conversation Blitzø moves the picture around to face him and dons the crown. I lost my mind a little noticing this detail. The picture was facing away while he was being weird with the dolls but when Stolas calls he puts them away, moves it to face him and puts on the crown that is a major motif for Stolas. Super interesting visual.

Stolas calls him his big dicked Imp and we have the cut away shots switching between Blitzø and Octavia saying What the Fuck and spit taking while Stolas tells them to watch their language which is hilarious…ya know considering. They have a rather disturbing conversation about Stolas planting his feathered ass but ultimately agree that Stolas will pay them money to protect them at the park. This is the first time we get the hint that Blitzø and Octavia think along similar lines, or mirror each other. The other comes later with Fizzarolli when they say “I hate that fucking clown”. I like that the two most important people in Stolas’s life are on the same wavelength so deliberately and so early in the show. It’s a very intentional choice.

It is also a progression point. Here Blitzø only agrees to do this for money. In Western Energy that isn’t even discussed even though the same service is provided.

A few other key things here, Octavia doesn’t seem to feel a body guard is necessary for a theme park. She seems to find the entire idea of needing a body guard to be foreign. It’s presented for what it is, as an excuse for Stolas to spend time with Blitzø. Yet at the park there are actually imp assassins following them around that Blitzø has to take care of. So there is a “threat” but Stolas seems capable of handling it himself later, and we also find out down the line that only angelic weapons can actually do any real damage to him.

The ultimate takeaway is Stolas is being selfish and focusing on this new sexual relationship at the expense of his daughter. He suggests a fun outing for them to recapture happier times but immediately uses it as an excuse to bring in the reason for the unhappiness. This scene serves as the final setup for the episodes conflict: Octavia’s fear of losing her dad, this time not because of a bad dream, but because of his affair with the imp he is forcing into their lives.

To be honest, it’s not my favorite scene or episode. I find both Blitzø and Stolas off putting in it, but the episode setup is complete, we are going to LooLoo Land, Blitzø, Moxxie and Millie are coming along for work. Octavia does not want to go.

We arrive at LooLoo Land in the IMP van. Stolas gets immediately into the role of fun theme park dad, donning his little apple hat. Stolas’s outfits often reflect the image he is trying to cultivate and that’s in full effect here. Octavia is reluctant and dragging her feet. She is telegraphing loudly she does not want to be here.

Blitzø lays out ground rules that they are here in a professional capacity and Stolas is not to fuck him or attempt to. Stolas brushes this off and says he’s cute. Octavia is revolted by her dad’s behavior. Blitzø also likens their arrangement to sex work, he is very firmly in that mindset. He later says he’s not a dayhooker. Later, as I previously stated the monetary compensation and even the grimoire deal is not mentioned as much, because their relationship and how they initially view it changes.

Moxxie goes into anxiety mode pulling out antacids and all kinds of stuff from a fanny pack. He does not like theme parks and has not been to one before while Millie is having a lot of nostalgia and excitement about the day.

Octavia asks about the park, revealing that it’s not LuLu World but a knockoff and the entire vibe of the park and its rundown appearance reinforce that. This world building will carry through to the Mammon special. The cast splits, Moxxie and Millie go off to enjoy the park and Blitzø goes with Stolas and Octavia.

I won’t break down all their scenes as they are largely irrelevant to the plot of the episode, but we get some backstory and dynamic stuff for Moxxie and Millie. Millie came from a poorer background but seemed to have a good family who took her to amusement parks when they could afford it, and she has fond memories of the place. Moxxie is trying to prove himself to his wife and is competing with someone for her even though she never indicates she needs it or that it’s even a competition. Moxxie does this with Striker later. Moxxie continues this cycle of poor self worth, trying to prove himself and failing, because he doesn’t actually need to.

Blitzø is acting very professional and taking his job seriously. Stolas is disregarding that, continuing to flirt, and we get our first basis for some of the reasons Blitzø won’t believe him later in the show. In this episode Stolas is very dismissive of his job and calls them imps several times in a very denigrating way. Stolas flirts and sexualizes Blitzø at the expense of his daughter and that conflict is very present the whole time until the end when he has that wake up call when she runs away from him.

Stolas is not a perfect father, he is not a perfect person. He has a taste of the sexual relationship he’s been craving and goes too far, and is too oblivious about how that affects others, to the detriment of everyone around him and to himself. Stolas’s obliviousness to other’s needs in service to the image he wants to project is really center stage here. He thinks Octavia loves Fizzarolli, that he was a happy memory, but we see in flashbacks she was actually terrified and hates the clown. Stolas is so caught up in having this perfect father daughter day he doesn’t pick up on her cues and keeps forcing her into things she doesn’t want to do. He doesn’t do this maliciously, or from a place of ill intent, just like he doesn’t oversexualize Blitzø for predatory reasons, he just lives in fantasy because he hates reality and he tries to bring those fantasies into reality by forcing it and being oblivious to other’s needs. As I talked about in the breakdown of the Ozzie’s scene Stolas goes out of his way to force things into the image he wants to project: a dad having a happy bonding day with his daughter.

This is Stolas’s main character flaw and it’s revealed here in this episode.

Blitzø is largely there to highlight this flaw. Stolas brought along the reason for the family’s destruction into this day that was supposed to be about his daughter. He’s trying to put up this happy front but the reason it’s not going well is his own actions. When Stolas ignores cues that Octavia doesn’t want to be there and flirts with Blitzø again after he takes out one of the assassins, Octavia gets fed up and leaves. Stolas goes after her.

Blitzø starts to follow but is called out by the Fizzbot. He stays in the tent and we get a little hint of Blitzø’s backstory with Fizzarolli, and Blitzo’s previous job at LooLoo land.

Fizzarolli asks him the super important question “Does anyone love you” just barely hinting at Blitzø’s character need, but present early on in the show and explicitly stated. This is almost exactly what happens with actual Fizzarolli in Ozzie’s. Seeing him in a crowd, calling him out and asking if anyone loves him.

Blitzø says no here, but he’s really good with guns now, and starts shooting at him. He then burns the circus down (*sings* foooorreshaadowwing). This is super interesting because it’s a setup for something we see change later. In Ozzie’s, Fizzarolli calls out to Blitzo in the exact same way, and asks him the exact same question. The next time he’s asked Blitzo doesn’t say no, he looks nervously at Stolas. That’s development baby. That’s growth.

Blitzø seems to have a lot of pent up anger for the Fizz bot and that’s a pin the writer’s setup early on to be explored later. We as the audience get information on some of his previous failures, his main conflict (the lack of and need for, love), and that these things are connected with this Fizzarolli person that Blitzo seems to hate to the point of burning down an amusement park to kill his proxy.

Meanwhile Stolas follows Octavia into the funhouse, an assassin goes for him and annoyed he says he is supposed to be bodyguarded. Millie takes out the assassin and he is dismissive of them, “not you littler ones”, and again shows us that he is playing out a fantasy. Blitzø is his knight in shining armor, even if he doesn’t actually need one, and he will contrive a situation to live that fantasy out (he could just turn the imps to stone but he wants Blitzø to have opportunities to save him).

This moment is really minimized in this episode but it’s huge when you look at Western Energy, as it’s directly reflected there. In that episode Stolas is in actual danger instead of contrived danger, Blitzø doesn’t think it’s an issue because he knows Stolas sets up these little scenarios for his fantasy. Except this time it’s real and his knight in shining armor once again does not save him, he’s saved by Moxxie and Millie again. It’s also when Bliztø realizes that Stolas can actually get hurt, that he really did need a knight in shining armor and Bliztø was not there. The fantasy he plays at in LooLoo Land becomes reality, but when it plays out this time Stolas actually gets hurt, Blitzø doesn’t save him. They both are faced with reality. I love things like this. A direct callback with change due to a character’s growth throughout the story? It’s beautiful.

Also, just to theorize a bit, this is a prime setup for the rule of three. In fiction things are often called back to three times, with gradual changes each time to contrast them and show the overall change in circumstance each time.

The first time at LooLoo Land, Stolas doesn’t actually need saving, he is safe but he wanted it and Blitzø wasn’t there. He’s disappointed. The second time in Western Energy Stolas does actually need saving but Blitzø isn’t there again and realizes at the end he should have been. Stolas is hurt emotionally and physically this time. Presumably, the third time Stolas will be in real danger, but this time he will assume Blitzø is not coming because he never has before, but this time Blitzø will be there, he will be what Stolas has been wanting. It would be a beautiful progression of their relationship and a great way to show the development and progression.

Back to the episode.

Stolas moves into the funhouse and has his needed heart to heart with Octavia. Octavia point blank says that this entire situation is his fault, he just spent the whole time flirting with Blitzø and ignoring how she felt. That this place was happy for her once but he ruined it with this affair. Stolas apologies for this and he tries to explain himself but fails. He doesn’t have the words. The general gist of his started and stopped sentences is that Stella and Stolas were not in love, that Stella has flaws, that he has flaws and he wants something else and always has. He doesn’t even know at this point what he wants, he can’t articulate it. The starts and stops are well done in that they tell the story without actually stating it, enough is given for audience inference but the character still doesn’t know. He doesn’t apologize for the affair itself but for causing her pain, he tries to explain why he did it but can’t. We’ll see him discover this as the show goes on but at this point he doesn’t know himself. He was enjoying the sexually charged fantasy but he was doing that at the expense of his daughter, and to a smaller degree in this episode, Blitzø.

Octavia expresses the fear setup at the beginning of the episode. That her father is going to leave her. Like he does in the flashback, he reassures her that is not going to happen. He would never willingly leave her. I also theorize that this is prophecy or foreshadowing. There will come a point where Stolas is gone and Octavia will need to help deal with it. There may be clues dropped in this episode when that day comes so something to keep an eye on. This is another candidate for the rule of three, Octavia dreams her father is gone, he finds her consoles her. Octavia fears her father will leave and her dream will become a reality, he finds her and consoles her. Later potentially he will be gone, and she will have to console herself and find him.

He tells her she was right, it’s time to go and like the flashback he carries her through the burning chaos of the circus, calling back to the celestial destruction, and then asks her what she actually wants. He gives her a choice. It’s the first sign of his character growth, he tried to force what he wanted on her to fulfill his fantasy but in the end he asks her and gives her a choice and autonomy.

This again is paralleled in Western Energy. It takes a big destructive moment for Stolas to realize he is ignoring what others want in service to his fantasies, and he takes the lesson he learned in LooLoo Land first to later give Blitzø what he wants after the events of that episode. The difference is that Octavia tells her father what she wants explicitly and then he gives it to her. She wants to spend time doing something she likes with her dad.

With Blitzø, what he tells Stolas with his actions and words is not what he actually feels and Stolas tries to handle it the same way using what he learns here, by giving it to him and giving him a choice, but we know it will ultimately be unsuccessful until Blitzø does what Octavia does and just tells him.

Blitzø, Moxxie and Millie fall in front of them.

Moxxie says something really interesting “Way to ruin another good thing, sir” which just has so many potential implications. Blitzø says it was worth it in this instance.

As I said before, this episode is not my favorite. We have a conflict (Octavia fearing her dad is going to leave her) and resolution (he promises he won’t and takes steps to show her) we have some character flaws introduced, the first mention of Blitzø’s character issue, a lot of exploration of Stolas’s and a lesson learned for Stolas that will be applied later by him in a similar way: giving the person he wronged a choice. We have a very loose three act structure but little stakes, and the plot is much more character driven than plot driven.

Overall we setup several things the writers explore much further down the road in Season 2 but the structure is not as cohesive and tight as it was in episode 1.

It’s a weak episode but it has strong setups for further exploration and looking at it with the context of what happens down the line shows that the writer’s do take into consideration what was introduced and continue the development begun here.

What’s important about LooLoo Land is that it shows us early that Stolas and his family drama and his relationship with Blitzø is a vitally important part of the show overall. If Stolas was just a plot driver or sexual comic relief character we wouldn’t get an entire episode devoted to his relationship with his daughter. He is shown to the audience as a whole character with this own flaws, desires and back and forward story to be explored. It’s also the 2nd episode of the series, so his establishment is only 2nd to the establishment of IMP and the overall premise. I harp on this a lot because most of the anti Stolas things I see ignore this fact completely. They reduce him down to the presentation of the OG Pilot instead of the direction the creators actually went, a pivotal main character going on his own journey within this story. (In my opinion if they had stuck to the original premise this show would be much much weaker and less compelling overall, but that’s a post for a different day.)

We are introduced to Stolas and his relationships even before Blitzø’s. We don’t even know that Loona is his daughter yet at this point in the canon text. We know nothing at all about Barbie Wire, his family, or anything outside of IMP. This is because this affair, the fall out, and the future consequences are CENTRAL to the entire show, they are why IMP exists, and they are central to Blitzø and his own growth and development. The same can be said of Fizzarolli, there’s a reason that backstory is hinted at in a Stolas episode. The question he keeps asking Blitzø, does anyone love you is first linked here. The events that take place in LooLoo Land are directly reflected in Ozzie’s and in Western Energy later. These setups take place so early on in the show’s run and are continually fleshed out and paid off as it continues.

The episode itself is weak but the foundations it lays are incredibly strong.